


Not quite what anyone expected

by crimson_calamity



Series: We're the opposite of angels [3]
Category: GOT7, JJ Project
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Demons, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-17
Updated: 2018-01-22
Packaged: 2018-12-30 19:01:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 53,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12115164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimson_calamity/pseuds/crimson_calamity
Summary: Of all the ways Jinyoung could have seen this unfolding, this wasn't one of them, but maybe that's not a bad thing. Good surprises are rare enough, he's not going to question it when one happens to him.He's content to not have all the answers in this case. He has something much better.





	1. The Drama (oh how Jinyoung wishes his was so mundane)

**Author's Note:**

> I would recommend reading the other parts in this series first or shit may get pretty confusing lol but for the record this takes place chronologically just after the events of honey, which is the first part of the series but takes place just after the last chapter of the second part, of all the assignments, which was effectively a flashback

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> honestly I just had sunmi's gashina on repeat while writing this and just kept rediscovering how gay I am lol

Jinyoung sighs, glaring at his laptop screen. The word count mocks him: 602. He'd been hoping to get up to 1500 today at least, but it seems it's not meant to be, considering it's now three minutes to midnight. With a groan, he snaps it shut, plunging the room into near darkness (it's not his fault, the room got dark around him), the only light coming from the tiny window, orange and harsh from the streetlamps outside. He slides it off his lap onto the coffee table and flops onto his side, curls into a ball. He stares blankly at the TV they can't use because neither him nor any of his housemates want to be the one to sort out the license fee, then shuts his eyes, hoping to get a couple hours of sleep at least before he has to get up to get ready for his hellish 8 a.m. class.

That lasts for about five minutes before someone bustles in on heavy footsteps and the main light is flicked on; heaving a long sigh, Jinyoung opens his eyes to scowl at the intruder, squinting against the light. It's Yoongi and he just raises an eyebrow on his way past to the bathroom. He shuts the door with a click and Jinyoung is about to try to go back to sleep again when he speaks through it.

"You know you have a room right?" He says dryly. Closing his eyes and wishing for strength, Jinyoung sits up, glowers in the direction of the bathroom.

"I know." He says shortly; he just doesn't want to sleep there at the moment, certain recent events involving a certain extra-planar entity far too fresh in his mind and, well, his room has all the stuff he needs to summon said entity, which is way too big a temptation right now when he actually needs to do some real work and also, well, not risk loosing a demon into the world because he wants to get his rocks off. Though that issue is mostly sorted it seems. Still. There's a flush and a tap turns on and off, then Yoongi unlocks the door and steps out, wiping his wet hands on his sweatpants as he heads to the kitchen.

"Then sleep in it." Jinyoung would throw a cushion at him but he can't find the energy, chooses to flop back onto his side and close his eyes.

"I had a hankering for the sofa." He mumbles, hoping Yoongi will leave it alone, but he just gets an unimpressed hum and the sound of the fridge opening.

"Dissertation not going well?" He calls back. Jinyoung holds back a groan and doesn't respond, keeps his eyes firmly closed. "You want some chicken nuggets?" He cracks an eye open. "Thought so." He says impassively when Jinyoung slowly pads into the kitchen and plops onto one of the chairs at the dining table, pouring out the entire pack onto a baking tray and shoving them in the oven. "So what's wrong with your room?" He raises one eyebrow as he takes a seat opposite Jinyoung, continues to stare at him until he sighs and shifts uncomfortably.

"Dissertation is harder than I thought." He mumbles, trying to avoid the question and pushing one of the coasters - it's one of the bag-loads the university gave out during freshers week - around with the tip of his finger. Yoongi stays silent, is just watching him expectantly when he risks a quick glance up. The oven hums in the silence, then there's a thud and muffled swearing from Jennie's room upstairs.

"And?" Yoongi eventually prompts. Jinyoung groans, drops his head onto the table.

"So say theoretically someone you knew was in something of a dilemma in regards to their dissertation research," Jinyoung says into the fake wood, "and had two main options, either stop the current topic and start again, or continue their current research and likely end up in a slightly sticky situation ethically but not have to start again, what would your advice be?" Yoongi hums, taps his nails on the table.

"Ethically sticky in what sense?" He asks dubiously. Jinyoung makes an uneasy noise. "Alright, who'd be hurt in the sticky situation?" A good question. Jinyoung considers it; the main issue he thinks is the fact that he's letting Jaebum out of the circle without any warding in particular, but theoretically he could adjust the script such that he's bound to the room or to Jinyoung or something, tricky as that might be, but even if Jaebum bolts, which seems unlikely to begin with considering he's literally swore he wouldn't and that's not something easily broken considering his whole inability to lie thing, he's not really going to be hurting people per se, more just banging them. There is the legal issue too, in that Jinyoung isn't sure it's legal to be letting demons run about in this plane, but that's, incredibly, the least of his personal worries. What's also mildly concerning is the fact that he's not so much planning on stopping, more just doing some damage control because, dangerous and stupid or not, he's finally admitting to himself that he's actually having a damn good time with Jaebum and he does actually want to continue this arrangement they have going.

"No one?" Jinyoung says slowly, not quite believing it himself. More tapping of nails on the table.

"Is it illegal?" He asks.

"Possibly." He pauses. "Probably." Another tap.

"Is this friend likely to be caught?" Jinyoung considers this now; probably not. Unless one of his housemates bursts in on him in flagrante delicto, but even then, probably not, at least not by the police. His housemates are generally pretty chill anyway, plus he's sure he has blackmail material on all of them.

"No." Yoongi snorts.

"Then fuck starting again. It's halfway through the semester, I wouldn't wish restarting a dissertation now on anyone." Jinyoung snorts in return, sits up rubbing his sore forehead. "Though I would advise maybe surreptitiously checking out the laws regarding this 'sticky situation'-" he air-quotes around the words- "so this friend doesn't get their ass in hot water without warning." He shoots Jinyoung a knowing look, who tries not to look guilty. "And of course, needless to say I have no involvement and was never spoken to about this." His eyes flash and Jinyoung nods slowly, forces an innocent smile.

"Of course. And this is all theoretical, obviously." He reiterates and Yoongi nods.

"Of course." He unlocks his phone and starts scrolling through something, signalling the end to the conversation. Jinyoung lets out a slow breath and picks up his own phone.

 

Jinyoung crosses his legs, sips on his coffee and watches people pass by the window. Jackson's running late as per usual, Jinyoung having received a string of irritable but apologetic texts saying he'd forgot he had a meeting with one of his lecturers about his fluid dynamics module that he (and half the course) is failing. Still, he promised to buy Jinyoung a muffin as an apology when he arrives, so Jinyoung's not too fussed.

He jumps when his phone buzzes, vibrating the whole table. He grabs it and swipes to answer without looking at the caller id; expecting Jackson, he's very jarred to hear Jisoo.

"Hey, so I literally cannot find jack-shit in the set textbook for Curses, have you tried the tutorial yet?" She sounds harried and there's muffled laughter that sounds like it could be Jennie in the background.

"We had a tutorial for Curses?" Jinyoung asks blankly, but he laughs when Jisoo groans and starts complaining. "I'm joking, you mean the one on hexes and stuff, right?" He grabs his bag, awkwardly rifles one-handed through the various folders and papers and junk he hasn't got around to clearing out. "I think I've actually finished it, if I have it with me, I'll send you pictures of it." She heaves a huge sigh of relief.

"Jinyoung you know I love you right?" He hears Jennie's indignant gasp clearly even through the phone and there's sounds of a tussle and then a thump and a pained groan. "Jennie pushed me off the bed!" She yelps far too loudly; Jinyoung leans away from the phone.

"Go sit on Jinyoung's bed if you love him so much!" Comes Jennie's muffled screech but she's laughing around it, then there's a muffled whump noise and another squawk from Jisoo.

"Now she's throwing pillows at me!" Jinyoung snorts, shaking his head.

"Just wait til I'm off the phone to kiss and make up." He says. Jisoo grumbles a bit but there are no more shouts or bangs, so they've presumably stopped play-fighting.

"So where did you get your research for it? Literally the set textbook is trash, I don't know why they made us pay for it." Jinyoung hums; he doesn't have it, expected as much based on the textbooks he naively bought in first year.

"I just googled it, found a bunch of stuff with references to books and then referenced the books." He says, finally finding the right bundle of paper and tugging it from his bag. Jisoo groans and there's more laughter from Jennie. "Found it, I'll send my answers to you."

"I would die for you right now Jinyoung." She says very seriously before she hangs up. Shaking his head fondly, Jinyoung flips through his pages of answers, taking photos of each and then sending them all at once, followed up with the obligatory 'don't forget to change the wording' text. She sends a thumbs up back almost immediately, then followed by four selfies from Jennie and a very close up shot of Jisoo's nose. Rolling his eyes, Jinyoung locks his phone and looks up to see Jackson dash through the door before it can swing closed, almost barrelling into a gaggle of hipsters. He waves over at Jinyoung and points at the counter then raises his hands in a question, mouthing 'what kind of muffin do you want?' Jinyoung shrugs, mouths 'the cheapest one' back and Jackson nods solemnly, gives him an okay sign then a thumbs up.

The queue is fairly short so it's barely five minutes before he's sliding into the chair opposite Jinyoung and sliding a chocolate muffin the size of his fist across the table to Jinyoung.

"Got you the second cheapest one because I'm the best, you're welcome." He says breezily then proceeds to stick pretty much his whole face into the whipped cream of his hot chocolate and takes a long sip. "My fluid dynamics lecturer is the goddamn worst, I swear he hates me." He says when he resurfaces, wipes the cream covering his mouth off with the back of his hand; wrinkling his nose in distaste, Jinyoung digs a pack of tissues (he has about four in his bag, keeps forgetting they're there and buying more) out of his bag and passing one to Jackson who, of course, just keeps eye contact with Jinyoung as he licks the cream off his hand, daring him to say something. Jinyoung rolls his eyes and drops the tissue onto the table in front of him.

"You're disgusting." He says disapprovingly, sipping demurely on his own coffee. Jackson sticks his tongue out at him, but does grab the tissue, wipes his hand properly.

"Whatever-" he waves a hand dismissively- "how are you? Haven't seen you in a while, how're your modules going?" Oh if only he knew. Jinyoung shrugs, smiles vaguely.

"Alright, getting stuff done." Jackson nods, staring at him suspiciously.

"How's it going with fuck boy?" He asks, takes a sip of hot chocolate. Jinyoung laughs, hopefully not too maniacally.

"It's going fine. I'm getting the answers I need." He says, lifting his coffee back to his lips and just holding it there. Jackson doesn't look convinced, eyes narrowed.

"Has he stopped trying to fuck you?" Jinyoung snorts, able to truthfully say:

"Not even slightly." Jackson nods, looks concerned but Jinyoung waves it away. "It's fine, I'm handling it-" right, 'handling it'- "I told you I could." Yeah, he's not having any issues at all. Jackson hums, still watching him suspiciously. "I'm offended that you have so little faith in me, Jackson-" he turns his nose up, lets his reputation for being petty work in his favour for once- "I'm not an idiot." He takes an indignant sip of his coffee as Jackson flops dramatically into his chair.

"That's not what I'm saying, asshole, I'm just worried about you!" Jinyoung sets his coffee down and plays up the sheepishness. Not hard, he does feel pretty bad about lying to him.

"I know. I just- I've got it. It's fine." He pauses, shrugs, "I've only got a few more interviews to do now anyway. So it'll be over soon." Jackson hums and sits back up, finally looks satisfied, oblivious to the strange twist in Jinyoung's gut at the thought of not having to summon Jaebum any more.

"Well, that's good at least," he says blithely, "but in other news, I'm preparing to move to Siberia and restart my life as an ice fisherman as far removed from modern society as I can get." He says this very matter-of-factly and then drops his head onto his folded arms on the table, whining into them. Jinyoung massages his temples.

"And why are you going to do that?" He asks tiredly, having to lean in a bit because Jackson thinks talking into his arms is a good idea in a fairly loud coffee shop.

"Because Mark and Youngjae now know I'm an idiot." Jinyoung leans his forehead on his hand.

"I'm pretty sure they knew already." He says reasonably, fully expecting the slap aimed at the side of his head and ducking underneath it, much to Jackson's apparent displeasure.

"That's not helping!" He whines and promptly drops his head back onto the table with a thud, his mug rattling in its saucer. Jinyoung just waits, finally starts to unwrap his muffin. "I may have run into them on the way back from the gym." Is all he says though; Jinyoung frowns at the back of his head.

"So?" Jackson makes a pained noise.

"I ran into them. Like, right into them. Youngjae was carrying coffee." Oh. That does sound like something Jackson would do. "But I'd messed up the days so I realised halfway through my workout that I actually had a lecture in like, half an hour so I was running home to change and get my stuff and I just ran away from them because I was so late but I tried to yell 'oh no your shirt' and 'my bad I'll pay for the cleaning' over my shoulder but I just ended up shouting 'oh no, your bad' and then I bolted and I'm actually going to die if I see either of them again." He finally takes a breath and sits up and Jinyoung joins him, hadn't realised he'd been holding his the whole time too. He manages to keep a straight face for approximately half a second before bursting into laughter. "This isn't funny you dick!" Jinyoung can't speak and there are literal tears in his eyes and Jackson's indignant whine isn't helping at all. He flaps a hand at him, gasping for air. "You are such an asshole." He groans, head falling into his hands.

"You know, you could just text them and explain." Jinyoung wheezes when he's again able to form words but Jackson just groans.

"I can't. Too embarrassed." Jinyoung cocks an eyebrow but he doesn't look up to see it.

"You want me to tell them, don't you?" He says flatly. That makes Jackson look up and he claps his hands together, puppy eyes wide and pleading and Jinyoung rolls his eyes. "Fine." He picks his phone up, scrolls through to Mark's contact but then Jackson starts spluttering.

"Not now! Do it when I'm not here!" Jinyoung keeps eye contact with him as he presses the call button and Jackson's head hits the table again. It takes a few rings before Mark picks up.

"Hello?" He mumbles blearily. Jinyoung kicks Jackson under the table to try and get him to sit up.

"Hey Mark, it's Jinyoung. Sorry to wake you-" Jinyoung doesn't know how he manages to sleep so much, it's like he has no lectures or something but that can't be true, he does pure mathematics after all- "Jackson wanted me to clear his little accident with you up." Mark's quiet for a moment, the only sounds some rustling of fabric.

"Oh the coffee thing?" He asks, sounds fractionally more awake. Jinyoung hums an affirmative, kicks Jackson again but his head remains firmly on the table and he's making a little wounded noise. "Yeah, we just assumed he was late for something." Jinyoung snorts.

"Yeah he forgot he had a lecture." Mark laughs, that little fond one he reserves for Youngjae and, more and more often recently, Jackson.

"Tell him not to worry about it, the coffee was iced anyway so no burns." He pauses then hums thoughtfully. "Is that why he hasn't been answering our texts?" Jinyoung takes the phone from his ear, taps the speakerphone button.

"Yeah, he's been too embarrassed. Had a great plan to move to Greenland though." Jackson snaps his head up at his deliberate mistake just like Jinyoung knew he would.

"It was Siberia, idiot." He hisses at the same time that Mark laughs.

"Oh, you're there Jackson?" He asks, surprised and Jackson stares aghast at Jinyoung, who just shrugs and mouths 'finger slipped'.

"Um, yeah, hi." He says with a forced laugh, glaring daggers at Jinyoung. "I'm really sorry about earlier, I was just running late and got mixed up with what I was saying and if you have to pay to get anything cleaned, just tell me, I'll cover it-" He babbles, cheeks getting redder and redder.

"Jackson, chill, it's fine." Mark sounds like he's grinning and Jackson deflates a little, though he's still the colour of a tomato. "I put Youngjae's shirt in the washing machine when I got in, it's come out fine. You worry too much." He sounds so sickeningly endeared to him that Jinyoung has to resist the urge to mock-vomit. Jackson's eyes are huge and he's staring at Jinyoung's phone like it's Mark himself. "You should call again later, by the way, Youngjae will be sad he missed you." Jackson's eyes get impossibly bigger and a little smile creeps its way onto his face.

"Um, sure. I'll do that." Jinyoung leans his head on his fist, hand holding the phone starting to go numb; he can't believe he's a third wheel in a conversation over his own phone. Scratch that, he absolutely can.

"Oh, uh, you can too if you want Jinyoung." Mark tacks on as an afterthought. Jinyoung quirks an eyebrow.

"Sure thing." He says dryly. Jackson doesn't even look at him.

"Well, I'm sure you guys have stuff to do and I need to see if we actually have anything in our fridge, so I'll say goodbye now," Mark says, "talk to you later Jackson-" note, not Jinyoung- "bye guys." Jackson and Jinyoung both chorus goodbyes of their own and Mark hangs up. As soon as the line is officially gone, Jackson claps both hands to his face and huffs a long sigh.

"You guys need to just make it official already." Jinyoung grumbles, stowing his phone in his pocket. Jackson drops his hands to glare at him.

"We've been over this, Jinyoung, they're already dating each other-" Jinyoung cuts him off.

"Yeah and they're both head-over-heels for you, you are literally the only one who can't see that." Jackson just shakes his head sadly; Jinyoung groans and drops his head to the table this time, but quickly sits up when he spots he still hasn't actually eaten any of his muffin, pulls it into quarters and stuffs one in his mouth. "Jackson I guarantee you," he says through the mouthful, swallows hard, "if you ask them to go out with you they'll agree instantly. I will pay you actual real life money if they don't." Jackson doesn't look convinced, takes a sad sip of his hot chocolate. Jinyoung drops a quarter of his muffin onto his saucer. Don't say he never does anything for his friends.

 

Jackson makes it to the end of campus closest to Jinyoung's house before he realises he has a group meeting about some project he's been set and promptly turns on his heel and starts sprinting back towards the library. Jinyoung watches him go, dumbfounded as to how he is still so bad at timekeeping three years into university but then, Jackson's mind has always been something of a mystery to him. Shaking his head, he shifts his bag higher onto his shoulder and sets off again. Annoyingly, he forgot his headphones in his rush to leave this morning, so he's having to walk with no distractions, which of course means his thoughts cycle around to the only thing that seems to be on his mind at the moment. Some casual googling in an incognito tab of the legal ramifications of letting a demon out of a circle without wards came up fairly empty, just led to lists of wards to use and various Reddit pages discussing the best ways to release some imps into a politician's house or something, but Jinyoung's not an idiot, it's the sort of thing that would definitely be illegal or at least get him banned from ever practising magic again. Which would be bad, considering that's his whole career plan.

He sighs as he waits for the traffic light to turn, tapping his fingers against his bag strap. The easy solution to all of this is to, of course, stop doing the illegal thing and not let Jaebum out of the circle. But (there always has to be a but) the problem with that is that he doesn't want to stop. He likes this, he likes this arrangement they have going. Not that that's a good reason, but it's still enough of one that he's not going to stop. Plus it's not like Jaebum's likely to run off. He's very good at rationalising things he wants, even if they aren't necessarily good things, Jinyoung has discovered over the course of the last few weeks.

Although, he thinks as he crosses the street, there's a new issue that's been nagging at him more and more; he's almost done with his dissertation research. If he manages to get through the questions he has in the same sort of time as he's already been making, he should only have a handful more interviews left to do. Which is great, it means he's got plenty of time to write the thing up, but there's an odd gap that opens in his chest when he thinks about it, about not having a reason, an excuse really, to summon Jaebum any more and that just opens up more questions, namely what the hell is wrong with him and why is he sad about the idea of not seeing a demon any more, regardless of who that demon is? He sighs, hoists his bag higher onto his shoulder; those are questions he doesn't really have the time or the inclination to answer at the moment, so they're going to be locked in the feelings box for the time being, for more in-depth study later, when he doesn't have a 6000 word essay to write. In the meantime, he's just going to live in the moment and enjoy university and break several laws to fuck someone from another plane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cheers for reading lads! this is a gentle introduction but have no fear shit kicks off in a big ol' sexy way in the next chapter


	2. Quiet night in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song for this chapter is [this remix of overdose by ciara](https://youtu.be/0vNgVyjA5I8) it's real good

If someone had told fresher Jinyoung that he'd one day be voluntarily denying an invitation to a house party on a Friday night, he'd have told that someone that they're absolutely right, that sounds like something he'd do, but for some reason his housemates seem to think he's gone mad when this is actually more in character than him agreeing to come. He went wild during freshers, had one too many awful hangovers at strangers' flats then turned over a new leaf and he has enjoyed that leaf ever since.

"Come on, Jinyoung, even Yoongi's going!" Jennie whines, throwing another cushion at him. Her and Momo are both sat on the sofa all dolled up and looking very pretty while Yoongi is standing in the kitchen in jeans and a t-shirt, already knocking back a third shot of vodka. Jinyoung shakes his head, picks the cushion up and drops it on the single armchair they have. It was the last one, all of their cushions now piled onto this one chair.

"No, I've got work to do." He says, which is true, he's just probably not going to spend much time doing it. His cunning plan is to use this as an opportunity first of all do some of his dissertation write up and then summon Jaebum again and not have to worry about being heard past the soundproofing; Momo had asked him if everything was okay the other day, because she said she heard some banging and loud noises. Jinyoung had frozen for a moment but managed to convince her that he'd just been moving his bed out to hoover underneath it (a horrible lie; he's never even touched their hoover) but it had brought home the fact that he's not as subtle as he thought he was. Which is to say, he hadn't thought he was at all, which makes this all the more alarming. Maybe he should be a little concerned about the effort to which he's going to sneak around with Jaebum, but he brushes that out of his mind, he'll think about that tomorrow.

"If he doesn't want to come, he doesn't have to." Momo says reasonably. Jennie claps a hand to her chest and whips around to stare at her in open-mouthed betrayal, the dangling metal bits of her earrings clattering together.

"You're supposed to be on my side!" She screeches, "Don't give him an out!" Yoongi finally trudges into the room and throws something at her; a tortilla chip from the entire bag he's been eating his way through since they've been getting ready to go. It bounces off her forehead and lands in her lap; she picks it up, glares darkly at Yoongi who seems unfazed, hand rummaging in the bag again.

"Chill Jennie, there's always next week." He says and she grumbles something under her breath, shoving the chip into her mouth with one last dirty look at Jinyoung.

"Fine, but you are coming next week." She says, points a threatening finger at Jinyoung as she stands but it's ruined a bit because she's talking around a mouthful of crunchy corn chip. Jinyoung bows his head acquiescently and waves as they leave, winking at the apologetic grimace Momo shoots his way as she clicks after Jennie in her painful looking heels. Yoongi throws him a salute on his way past and there are shrieks as Jennie realises how cold it is outside then a thud of the front door slamming shut behind them. Jinyoung breathes a sigh of relief and heads for the kitchen.

Armed with a fresh bowl of instant noodles, Jinyoung slowly climbs the stairs to his room, kicks the door shut behind him and plops into his desk chair. He opens his laptop to see all his notes still open as well as the reading he still hasn't done for Tinctures and Tonics but rather than use noodle time productively and do said reading, he finds himself in a YouTube hole, clicking through various conspiracy videos until he runs out of noodles.

With a sigh, he shoves the bowl away, opens up his dissertation and types and retypes sentences but quickly gives up and drops his head to the desk with a groan. Why did he think this module was a good idea? Why couldn't he be sensible and pick one that didn't have such a long essay to write? He curses his past self for wanting to lighten his end-of-semester exam load; why couldn't he just be content to suffer like everyone else? Plus there's really no point working in his room any more; he keeps glancing over at the open space on the floor, the chalk smudges in a rough circle, the goddamn stain on his ceiling he still needs to figure out a way to clean. He snaps his laptop shut and gets to his feet, swearing under his breath.

Laptop and phone safely deposited downstairs and bedroom door firmly locked, he digs out the circle design from underneath a pile of other notes from other modules and copies it out onto the floor, dusts off his jeans as he stands and carefully speaks the script. The room blurs and Jinyoung's hair stands on end and there's pop and Jaebum's sat cross-legged in the centre of the circle as he so often is, chin propped on his hand with his elbow on his knee.

"Hello, Jinyoungie." He says warmly. Jinyoung stares open-mouthed at him.

"Your hair is pink." He says, cleverly. Jaebum barks a slightly surprised laugh, ruffles his bubble-gum coloured hair, silky black shirt almost slipping off his shoulder.

"Well done for noticing." Jinyoung just frowns at him, manages not to flush. He just grins and leans back on his hands in such a way as to make his shirt _fully_ slip off his shoulder.

"Why pink?" He shrugs fluidly, flicks his fringe out of his eyes with a little toss of his head. It's not entirely pink, Jinyoung notices, the roots are a dark brown but the rest of it is so very pastel pink he didn't notice until now.

"Felt like it." Satisfied, he blinks up at Jinyoung, grins. "You seem confused." Jinyoung folds his arms.

"Well it's just... Not a colour I would think to see on you." Jaebum's face falls and he looks convincingly upset, but his pale yellow eyes are glittering with mirth.

"Is it because I'm not cute enough for it?" He says with a sad wobble to his voice. Jinyoung doesn't bother to hide his eye roll and hums noncommittally, sits down heavily in his chair and spins to face his desk and flip open his notebook. "Hey!" Jinyoung ignores his squawk of protest and flips to a new page, writes the date in the top corner.

"You can't read my mind, right?" He asks, more states; he's confident enough that he can't that he feels comfortable not having to get a roundabout answer from him. Jaebum grumbles an affirmative, seems to be sulking when Jinyoung glances over at him; he won't look at him, is glowering at a wall but his mouth is twisted just slightly and it looks like he's trying not to laugh. Jinyoung finds himself biting back a grin too; shaking him head, he writes down the first question and reads it out.

"Last time, you said there weren't any laws in your plane, is that right?" Jaebum hums. "How does that work? Like, what happens if someone, I don't know, kills someone?" Jinyoung looks over at him to see he's flopped on his back with his arms spread out.

"Then that person's dead and their people get revenge." He says, sounding very bored. "Jinyoungie this is boring." There we go.

"We've literally just started." Jinyoung says unsympathetically and he groans, sits back up to pout sadly in Jinyoung's direction.

"But it's boring!" He whines. Jinyoung rubs his forehead. "Can I at least have my cushion? Your floor sucks." Oh, oops. The throw pillow. Which is currently drying out after being washed, Jinyoung having lent it to Jennie for one of her squad's pre-drinks and being given it back soaked in vanilla vodka by a very apologetic Rose.

"I don't have it right now." Is all he says though, prompting Jaebum to flop back onto his back dramatically, only for him to pop back up very quickly and level Jinyoung with an innocent smile.

"Can I sit on your bed then?" Jinyoung drops his head into his hands but stands up a moment later, glowers at Jaebum the whole time he walks over to the circle and kicks a rune. Jaebum looks almost taken aback but jumps to his feet and is lying on his stomach on Jinyoung's bed before Jinyoung can even take a step towards his chair, chin propped on his hands and feet kicking in the air and an insufferably smug smile on his face. "Thanks Jinyoungie." Jinyoung just sighs and sits back down.

"So your plane's basis of law is basically anarchy?" Jinyoung asks. Jaebum shrugs.

"Guess so, we just don't start shit because it generally escalates into clan wars or something." Jinyoung pauses in his writing, stares in shock over at Jaebum.

"Clan wars?" He just shrugs again.

"Yeah." Is all he says.

"Do wars happen a lot?" Jinyoung asks, aghast. Jaebum looks amused.

"Sweetheart it's a plane full of demons, many of which feed on anger and fear and pain, what do you think?" He laughs and Jinyoung feels a little stupid.

"Still, surely you have better things to do than fight wars with each other all the time?" Jinyoung tries but Jaebum's eyes just flash red for an instant and he grins.

"I do, sure-" he winks- "but that lot get off on different things. Like killing each other." He shrugs. Wide-eyed, Jinyoung makes a note of it.

"Okay, um-" he scratches his temple with the pencil- "tell me about the royal family." Jaebum sighs, sits up to lean against the headboard of the bed, one leg stretched in front of him and the other bent so he can lean his arm on it. His hand blurs and then there's a not-cigarette in between his fingers, smoke curling upwards to stain a new part of Jinyoung's ceiling.

"What about them?" Jinyoung closes his eyes; why must this be like pulling teeth every time?

"You said you have a queen? Tell me about her." Jaebum's mouth twists slightly and he raises the cigarette to his mouth, takes a long pull off it.

"Her name's Lerissa-" his eyes cut to Jinyoung's quickly and he looks alarmed- "but don't try summoning her, okay?" He seems almost worried. Jinyoung snorts and writes her name down.

"What, you think I can't handle it?" He says dryly, though if Jaebum says no he's going to be very sorely tempted to try it just to prove him wrong. Jaebum definitely looks uneasy now, takes another drag, smoke puffing from his mouth as he speaks.

"No, but that's not a dig at your abilities," he laughs slightly, "technically you could do it but Lerissa..." He tails off, staring down at the bedcovers as his expression darkens, eyes narrowed and Jinyoung finds it equal parts intimidating and incredibly attractive, though it's a strange juxtaposition to the bubble-gum hair. "She's a nightmare." He snaps the cigarette. It makes him jump a little too; he glares down at it then tosses it away. Jinyoung can't help bracing himself as it's about to land on his duvet, but it vanishes as he logically knew it would before it can.

"You don't like her?" Jinyoung asks slowly. Jaebum snorts, turns that glare on him for a second before it relaxes into something more grumpy than furious; Jinyoung's simultaneously relieved and slightly disappointed.

"How could you tell?" He says sarcastically. Jinyoung just rolls his eyes.

"Why don't you like her?" He asks. Jaebum's head knocks against the wall and he scowls at the ceiling.

"She's a pride demon so she's bad enough but-" his scowl gets darker- "I've had unpleasant dealings with her in the past." Jinyoung cocks his head.

"What sort of dealings?" He asks curiously. Jaebum's hands fist in the covers.

"You remember how you said I didn't have to answer anything too personal?" He says tightly and he won't look up. His hands look like they're shaking with how hard he's gripping the sheet.

"Oh, um, of course," Jinyoung stutters, "I'm, um, I'm sorry." He adds because Jaebum looks actually quite upset and that's definitely not something he wanted to do, but he relaxes a bit when Jinyoung says that, closes his eyes for a moment then his expression clears and he looks up at Jinyoung through his fringe, cracks a small smile.

"You look like you've seen a ghost." He says lightly. Jinyoung just frowns at him, looks down at his questions.

"Do you want me to ask you about something other than the royal family?" He offers but Jaebum shrugs, shakes his head.

"No, it's fine," he purses his lips, "Lerissa is queen, but only because she murdered the previous one and anyone who would have kicked her out." He rolls his eyes. Jinyoung settles back into his chair, crosses his legs and pulls the notebook onto his lap, tapping his pencil against his thigh.

"Was the previous monarch a pride demon too?" Jaebum nods, runs a hand through his hair. The pink somehow makes it look even softer than normal and Jinyoung has to shove down the urge to go over and test that for himself; he can do that later.

"She was, but she wasn't as insufferable as Lerissa is. Much less prone to violence. _Much_ better in bed." He says with a laugh. A wave of irritation washes through Jinyoung, though at what he's not entirely sure.

"You fucked the queen? Both of them?" Jinyoung asks flatly. He laughs again, winks with a pleased looking smirk.

"Of course, most succubi have. There aren't many of us after all." his expression turns thoughtful. "Though it's probably more accurate to say Anaia fucked me." He looks almost wistful for a moment, staring off into the middle distance and Jinyoung's annoyance spikes again.

"Anaia's the previous queen's name?" He says shortly, writes her name down when Jaebum nods, handwriting spikier than usual. When he looks up again Jaebum's staring at him with his eyes narrowed, the beginnings of a smirk starting to curl his lips up. "What?" The smirk goes from a hint to a full-blown grin and he crosses his legs, leans forwards to rest his chin on his hand.

"Are you jealous, Jinyoungie?" He asks, sounds practically gleeful and Jinyoung scowls at him.

"Of course not," he snaps, because he's _not_ , that's patently ridiculous, "how long has Lerissa been queen?" Jaebum's smile doesn't fade and his eyes flicker down to a darker yellow.

"About fourteen years by your count." He answers as he sits up, stretches his arms over his head then shifts to lie down on his side, head propped on his fist and one leg bent to hold himself up, loose shirt sliding off his shoulder. "Are you sure you aren't jealous, Jinyoungie?" Jinyoung shuts his eyes, takes a long slow breath.

"I'm sure." He bites out. Jaebum lets out a disbelieving hum, is still smirking at him when he opens his eyes again but he doesn't say anything else about it. "Do people like her as queen?" Jaebum snorts.

"Not in the least-" he grins- "she'll be gone soon enough." He looks very satisfied with that. Jinyoung hums, writes 'possible coup in the future?' next to Lerissa's name.

"And when you say gone..." Jaebum's nodding before he even starts tailing off.

"She's going to get herself assassinated." Jinyoung shakes his head with a huff; how lovely.

"So do pride demons tend to hold the monarchy?" He shrugs.

"I suppose so, they're the ones who want the title most." Makes sense. "Are we nearly done with the questions Jinyoungie? I'm bored." He whines, pouting at him when Jinyoung looks over, eyes wide and hopeful. Eyes lingering a fraction too long on his lips, Jinyoung looks down at the list he's working from with a slight clear of his throat but he finds surprisingly that they are actually nearly done with the questions he'd planned to ask today.

"One more question-" Jaebum perks up when he says this and conjures another cigarette, takes a pull from it and blows smoke towards the ceiling- "What's the general hierarchy of demons in your plane? Like which kinds are seen as stronger or whatever." Jaebum grins.

"You mean who are the most dominant?" He asks with a quirk of his eyebrow and Jinyoung sighs, waves an acquiescent hand because sure, that's close enough and if he wants it to be an innuendo, he's welcome to it. Humming, he taps the ash off the cigarette over the side of Jinyoung's bed. "Well, pride demons tend to control stuff because they have a conniption if they don't and wrath demons tend to be their main lackeys. Most types that feed on anger or envy or pain tend to flock around them too, to be honest." He stares at the ceiling in contemplation. "There are lots of minor or young demons at the bottom of the pecking order and just up from them are ones like sloth or gluttony." He grins, winks over at Jinyoung. "Us succubi are sort of removed from the ranking, we just slot in where people want us." Jinyoung rolls his eyes, looks down at his notebook and focusses on writing all that out. "Is that everything you wanted to ask me, sweetheart?" Jinyoung nods absently, still writing, but then his brain catches up and he flushes, mind ticking over to what usually happens when the questions are done and sure enough, Jaebum's eyes are a darker yellow than when he looked away and he's staring at Jinyoung with a curious look in them. Jinyoung swallows hard and sets his pencil on the desk, drops the notebook next to it.

"You know," Jaebum says abruptly, looking down at the cigarette between his fingers when Jinyoung risks a glance over, "for all the times we've fucked, you-" his eyes cut over to Jinyoung, heavy-lidded and glittering, pink fringe falling into them- "have not fucked me." He doesn't say anything more, lets that hang in the air and Jinyoung can't help flicking his eyes up and down his body, lingering on the collarbone peeking out from under his loose collar and the sliver of tan skin visible where his silky shirt's rode up.

"Is that supposed to be subtle?" Jinyoung asks dryly though his stomach is flipping over itself in both delight and nervousness at the thought of Jaebum pliant and writhing underneath him, especially right now with his cotton candy hair; he grins, inclines his head, throwing the cigarette aside and propping his chin on his hand and just watching Jinyoung as he flips his notebook closed and stands up. "So what, you want me to fuck you?" He tries to inject some bravado into his voice as he crosses the room; Jaebum rolls onto his back, stretches his arms over his head and arches slightly up so his shirt rides up even further, exposing the hard planes of his stomach and Jinyoung wants nothing more than to run his hands along it but he has the sudden thought that he can get some measure of revenge on Jaebum for just how flustered he makes him by drawing this out (it's his turn to be a tease).

"I'm only highlighting a fact." He says when he relaxes, leaves his arms up by his head, keeps still even when Jinyoung climbs onto the bed, kneels across his hips and leans over him, hands either side of his head. Jaebum stares up at him, head tipped back and throat bared, all heavy yellow eyes and tousled bubble-gum hair and it's now that Jinyoung decides he definitely likes being on top of him.

"But do you want me to?" He repeats, barely louder than a whisper. Jaebum's lips part on a sigh and he keeps looking between Jinyoung's eyes and his mouth, sucks the lower one between his teeth and slowly lets it slide free and he nods. Jinyoung cocks an eyebrow. "What was that?" He asks, wanting a verbal answer and Jaebum's lips twitch but he doesn't smile or laugh, just sighs, sweet breath fanning over Jinyoung's face.

"I want you to fuck me." There must be something wrong with him because his cock jumps at just that and he sees Jaebum's eyes tick a shade closer to orange; he blinks a few times, arches up towards Jinyoung's chest the smallest bit. "Would you kiss me, Jinyoungie?" Jinyoung smiles, laces their fingers together hand by hand and leans on his elbows, their faces inches apart now.

"What do you say?" He teases and to his shock and delight Jaebum blushes the smallest bit, cheeks dusting pink but he sighs again, tosses his head to flick hair out of his eyes and levels Jinyoung with wide eyes, blinking innocently.

"Please?" He breathes and, very satisfied, Jinyoung closes the distance between them. His lips are as soft and hot as ever but he's much more passive than usual, follows Jinyoung's lead, soft noises escaping his throat whenever Jinyoung flicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth or grazes teeth gently across his lips, but something feels off, like he's faking it. His fingers tighten around Jinyoung's every few seconds, breath catching in his throat, but he makes no move to take them back and touch him, even when Jinyoung releases his hands. His eyes stay shut when Jinyoung lifts himself up to look at him in confusion, parted lips twitching up into a slight smirk before it smoothes back out.

"You're being weird." Jaebum frowns a little, eyes still shut.

"What do you mean?" He asks and Jinyoung sighs sharply.

"You're-" he stops, doesn't quite know how to phrase it subtly so gives up- "being weirdly submissive." He cringes, turns red but Jaebum doesn't open his eyes to see it.

"Is that what you want?" He murmurs, tips his chin up a little to bare his throat, "you won't let me see, after all." It's Jinyoung's turn to frown.

"I don't- I want you to be you. Don't put on an act for me." He says, frustrated and maybe more honestly than he meant because Jaebum drops his chin, opens his eyes to stare up at Jinyoung uncomprehendingly.

"Seriously?" His voice is jarringly louder than before, all airs abandoned; several emotions war on his face when Jinyoung nods, too fast for him to see them all but he recognises confusion, disbelief, amazement and what looks like a brief flash of wonder before it settles on a slightly stunned smile. "Alright." He laughs and the air around him feels light, like some weight has been lifted from him. Jinyoung smiles back, also slightly confused, but it's chased from his mind when hands cup his jaw and he's pulled back into another kiss and it's already more familiar, though Jaebum's still letting him have more say as to the direction of it than usual, but in such a way that it seems like he's enjoying it too. One of Jaebum's hands slides down his back and snakes up and under Jinyoung's sweater to press like a brand against his skin, nails just teasing his skin.

"Though Jinyoungie," Jaebum murmurs into the kiss, "I don't want you to think this means I don't want you to fuck me-" he grins when Jinyoung gulps- "because I _definitely_ want that." He runs his other hand through Jinyoung's hair, licks deep into his mouth and Jinyoung lets out a shuddering breath, eyelids fluttering and kissing back as best he can with the distracting butterflies tumbling around in his stomach. Jaebum's hand continues up, pulling his sweater and shirt with it and Jinyoung sits up and quickly yanks it off and tosses it aside, ducks back down to kiss Jaebum again. Jinyoung doesn't see it happen but Jaebum's shirt clearly dissolves because the open flame of his chest is pressed up against Jinyoung's without the thin silk barrier between them.

Acting on instinct, Jinyoung mouths his way down to Jaebum's jaw, tugs on his hair and he tips his chin up, lets Jinyoung press kisses to his throat, breathing in that sweet smoky scent that clings to him courtesy of those not-cigarettes. He hums, swallows and Jinyoung can feel the vibration and the bob of his Adam's apple under his lips and he latches on just underneath it, biting gently at first then a bit harder when Jaebum grabs his hair and lets his head tip farther back with another breathier hum, sucks on it to purple the mark. Sure enough, there's a dark pink bruise forming when he lifts his head to look at it and Jaebum's eyes are shut but they flutter open when he pulls away, more orange now than yellow, kiss-swollen lips quirking up into a smirk. Jinyoung just smiles back and ducks back down, starts mapping a constellation of bruises onto his throat and collarbone and onto his chest, grinning when he bites particularly hard and Jaebum's hips twitch and he gasps wordless encouragement, sucks in a deep breath when Jinyoung runs his tongue over a nipple, then there's hands gripping Jinyoung's arms and physically hauling him back up so Jaebum can grab his hair and kiss him again, grazing teeth over Jinyoung's tongue when he licks into his mouth.

Jaebum's leg pushes against Jinyoung's until he gets the hint and lets him move it out from underneath him but he's taken off guard when he hooks that leg around his hips to pull him flat against him; his knees slip on the covers and he lets out a groan when their hips grind together both at the sudden friction against his already half-hard cock and the realisation that Jaebum's _also_ already halfway hard too. Jaebum just grins far too smugly, amber eyes raking over Jinyoung's face and Jinyoung is so _sick_ of being the only one getting flustered; boldness overtakes him and he grabs Jaebum's ass as he kisses him again, pulls his hips up into his own as he rolls them smoothly into him and it actually works, Jinyoung swallows a surprised moan as Jaebum's hands clutch at his shoulders. Jinyoung doesn't let up, just keeps grinding and Jaebum's nails dig in, claw down his back hard enough to sting but he barely notices, brain preoccupied by lips and tongue and the too good friction against his cock.

Then an actual thought spears into his head and he pushes himself up with a groan, goes to sit up properly but Jaebum won't let him move more than a few inches away, frowning up at him.

"What are you doing?" He murmurs and Jinyoung flushes, all his bravado draining away.

"I, um- do you want me to, you know-" Jaebum licks his lips and bites them on a grin, just raises his eyebrows questioningly with a shake of his head- "do you want me to get some lube or do you want to, you know, summon some?" He asks with his eyes closed, cheeks flushing bright pink and Jaebum chuckles, cups the side of Jinyoung's face.

"I'll do it-" he leans up, captures Jinyoung's lips again and murmurs against them- "you aren't going anywhere." Jinyoung gulps.

"Okay," he squeaks, Jaebum's grin broad against his mouth and he catches Jinyoung's lip between his teeth for a second, "do you want me to, you know, actually do it, or..." he tails off and Jaebum laughs again, presses a kiss to Jinyoung's cheek then tugging him down to murmur into his ear.

"You mean do I want you to finger me open?" He asks, breath hot against Jinyoung's ear; he nods slightly, takes a steadying breath. "I don't mind either way sweetheart," he replies, voice achingly deep, "it all depends on if you want to stretch me open with your fingers, find out for yourself just where to touch to make me gasp and tighten around them, so you know just where to thrust to make me scream your name-" Jinyoung's face feels like a furnace and Jaebum shifts him back to lean their foreheads together, deep red eyes glittering and boring into his own as he continues- "or if you want to watch me do that to myself." Jinyoung's breath shudders out of him and he gulps, unable to look away. Jaebum's still grinning, runs his nails up the back of Jinyoung's neck to dig lightly into his scalp, chuckling at the shiver that tingles down his whole body. "Well?" He murmurs but Jinyoung doesn't have an answer yet; both options sound pretty great.

Thankfully he's saved from making the decision because Jaebum's eyes glint and he pushes on Jinyoung's shoulders until he sits up, loose trousers dissolving in a blur, then takes his hand and pushes it between his legs, past his leaking cock and then Jinyoung gets the hint, pads of his fingers searching for Jaebum's asshole. He finds it and jumps slightly when his fingers suddenly become cool and slippery; Jaebum just winks at him and lifts his hips up a fraction, leaning up on his elbows. Swallowing hard, Jinyoung carefully pushes a finger in, suppresses a gasp at just how hot he is inside; Jaebum grins, stares at Jinyoung with heavy eyes.

"You don't have to be so gentle, Jinyoungie." He purrs, chuckling at Jinyoung's withering glare. "Trust me, you can't break me sweetheart." Jinyoung's face is still lit up like a beacon but he wrinkles his nose, pulls his finger almost out to press three in at once and try and stop him staring at him with that goddamn smirk. His fingers meet next to no resistance, sliding in smoothly and it sort of works in that he stops smirking but it's replaced by something arguably worse as his head tips back, lips parting on a sigh before he licks them and bites on the lower, eyes falling shut. Which is good, because it means that he can stare at him openly without embarrassment; he slides his fingers in and out a few times, studying every little movement of his face, then curls them, searching until Jaebum's hips jerk and he falls back flat on the bed and his mouth falls open on a small gasp, cock leaking beads of precum. Jinyoung's jeans are actually painfully tight now as he keeps rubbing the pads of his fingers over that same spot and Jaebum's back arches up off the bed and his eyelids flutter. "J-Jinyoungie, you," he stutters, walls tightening around Jinyoung's fingers, "you, ah-!" Eyes popping wide open, he cuts off into a surprisingly high-pitched moan when Jinyoung pulls his fingers out and thrusts them back with a slick sound in against his prostate, his stomach clenching and thighs shaking slightly.

"What was that?" Jinyoung asks innocently though he's internally he's an odd mixture of triumphant and painfully turned on, repeats the motion to see Jaebum's cock twitch but he claps a hand over his mouth to muffle another noise, staring up at Jinyoung hazily, candy hair falling messily on the white bedcovers. Jinyoung just cocks his head inquisitively, biting back a grin when Jaebum's crimson eyes narrow but he begrudgingly takes his hand from his mouth.

"You don't need-" Jinyoung crooks his fingers again and Jaebum moans again but this time he pushes his hips into it and laughs breathlessly even as his cheeks turn pink- "you're such an ass, Jinyoungie-" Jinyoung's about to protest but he stops, inclines his head; he's not wrong. He just laughs again, smile adorably wide. "Come here." He says, making grabby hands at him and Jinyoung pulls his fingers out, leans back over Jaebum to be tugged down and kissed, fingers combing through his hair and the slide of their lips messy and uncoordinated and so good, then Jaebum's holding his head still, grin millimetres from his lips. "What I was trying to say," he says mock reproachfully, "was that I don't need any more preparation, so-" he arches up against Jinyoung's chest, moves to murmur into his ear- "you should just hurry up and fuck me." His grin presses against Jinyoung's neck as he lets out an unsteady breath, fingers twitching into fists in the covers either side of Jaebum's head. "Take your pants off, sweetheart." Jaebum's shoulders are shaking slightly like he's trying not to laugh but he just smiles innocently when Jinyoung sits up and frowns at him, but he does fumble at his belt, Jaebum following him up to wrap both arms around his neck and press kisses to his jaw.

"You need to let go if you want me to take my pants off, you know?" Jinyoung says dryly, proud that he only wavers a little bit. Jaebum hums reluctantly against his throat but obeys, leaning back on his elbows, wine-red eyes raptly watching Jinyoung as he awkwardly shucks his jeans and boxers off and kicks them aside, then immediately grabs him and pulls him between his legs and on top of him. He tries to pull him back down to kiss him again, but Jinyoung sits back up, cocks an eyebrow when he pouts at him. "You're the one who said hurry up." He says with a pointed flick of his eyes and Jaebum grins, eyes flashing and Jinyoung gulps, can't meet his gaze right now so doesn't, grabs his thigh and concentrates on lining his cock up with Jaebum's hole but he does look up before pushing in. Jaebum's still watching him expectantly, just raises an eyebrow challengingly and Jinyoung leans back over him as he pushes in.

"Shit-!" His ass is _so hot_ and Jinyoung slides right in with next to no resistance but he's still so fucking _tight_ and he lets out a satisfied sigh, hooking a leg around his waist to urge him all the way in. Gasping, Jinyoung knocks his head against Jaebum's shoulder, digging his fingers into the meat of his thigh; he's also breathing hard, but runs his hands through Jinyoung's hair and there's a grin in his voice when he speaks.

"You doing okay, sweetheart?" He asks teasingly, but his fingertips press soothingly against the back of his neck. Jinyoung grumbles wordlessly against his collarbone and bites down in retaliation, sucking in a quick breath when Jaebum gasps and tightens around him and he rears back up to kiss him again as he snaps his hips forward. Jaebum rolls his hips into it with a low moan, grinning against his mouth and grabbing at his shoulders, scoring more stinging lines down them but Jinyoung couldn't care less at the moment, too caught up in how hot and tight and perfect Jaebum's ass is. He opens eyes he doesn't remember closing as he breaks the kiss to try and gasp his breath back, though he doesn't make that much of an effort in that regard because his hips don't stop moving, fall into a rhythm and each thrust forward has him losing his breath all over again in time with the thuds of the headboard hitting the wall. Jaebum's head tips back and he watches Jinyoung with a lopsided grin as he wraps his legs around Jinyoung's waist and clenches around his cock. Swearing under his breath much to Jaebum's apparent delight, Jinyoung grabs his ass and sits up on his knees, pulling Jaebum's hips sharply up to meet him and he must graze his prostate because his mouth falls open in a loud moan and he stares up at Jinyoung with hazy wine-red eyes, blinking quickly and clapping a hand over his mouth to muffle another noise when Jinyoung keeps it up, gasping himself as he finds himself already getting embarrassingly close to coming.

"Fuck Jaebum-" Jinyoung chokes out, fingers digging into Jaebum's hips hard enough to bruise as Jaebum's thighs squeeze his waist so hard he has trouble pulling out to slam back in again; crimson eyes fluttering open and closed and hair a candy pink mess over the sheets, he's jerkily pushing back against every one of Jinyoung's thrusts, walls tightening around Jinyoung each time. Even with the hand over his mouth his moans are audible, pulled deep from his chest and his cock is painfully hard, streaks of precum smearing across his stomach and more leaking from the tip with every one of Jinyoung's thrusts. Jinyoung shifts a little higher on his knees and adjusts Jaebum's hips slightly and snaps his forwards at the angle he thinks will hit Jaebum's sweet spot and sure enough, his back arches painfully far and his other hand clamps over the first over his mouth to muffle a much higher pitched moan, eyes popping wide open then rolling back into his head a little when Jinyoung keeps fucking into him right there, thighs trembling around his waist.

Stars flickering on the edge of his vision, Jinyoung slows his hips a little, pulls Jaebum's hands from his mouth to kiss him, leaning on one arm and Jaebum pulls him closer, fists one hand in his hair and drags the nails of the other down his back. It's not really a kiss, more just panting into each other's mouths and nipping at each other's lips and Jaebum's head tips back when Jinyoung grinds his hips right where it'll make him see stars, Jinyoung's name falling off his lips over and over in a desperate chant and he clenches hard around him and pulls his hair and Jinyoung can't hold back his orgasm any more, buries his face in the crook of Jaebum's neck, gasping against his feverish skin. He thrusts once, twice, riding it out, then slides a hand down to wrap around Jaebum's cock but he barely get his fingers around it before Jaebum's thighs squeeze all the air from his lungs and there's warmth spilling onto his stomach and he's crying out Jinyoung's name, throat vibrating under Jinyoung's lips, entire body shaking.

When he gets his breath back and collects his wits back together, Jinyoung sits up, or tries to at least, but Jaebum just tightens his arms around Jinyoung's neck and his thighs around Jinyoung's waist and shakes his head, mewling wordlessly when Jinyoung wriggles his way to look at him, though he has to bite back a whimper at the clench around his oversensitive cock. He has his eyes screwed shut and his head pressed back against the pillow, bitten red lips open and slick with saliva and he's panting hard and still trembling slightly.

"You alright?" Jinyoung asks hesitantly, feeling a bit stupid about being nervous considering his cock is still in Jaebum's ass. His eyes flutter open, hazy and a red so dark they're a shade away from black, then he blinks and focusses properly on Jinyoung. He smiles, lopsided and charming, though there's a layer of something beneath it that Jinyoung can't quite identify, but if he had to guess he'd say Jaebum is _shocked_.

"Never better." He murmurs, voice a deep rasp; Jinyoung shivers and slides his hands down Jaebum's sides to his thighs, tries to pry him off gently, then firmly when that doesn't work and with a groan he relents, throws an arm over his eyes and bites hard on his lip, whining a little when Jinyoung pulls out with a gasp and flops heavily down next to him. They just lie in silence for a moment, both just breathing deeply, then Jinyoung opens heavy eyes he doesn't remember closing because Jaebum has wound his arms around Jinyoung's waist and buried his face into Jinyoung's chest, half lying on top of him.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Jinyoung asks dubiously, frowning down at the top of his head, bubble-gum hair spilling over Jinyoung's chest; has he broken him? Was he that good? He can't wrap his head around it but Jaebum just hums noncommittally and snuggles closer. "Jaebum?" Jinyoung goes to poke him but he notice his eyes are closed and his breathing is slow and he's actually fallen asleep, or is determinedly trying to at least. Heart pounding, Jinyoung shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath; it's fine, he's cool. This is fine. He's not nervous and even if he _was_ theoretically nervous there would be no reason to be, right? Jaebum is just tired, Jinyoung gets tired after sex too, especially when on the receiving end, there's nothing odd or _domestic_ about it. He's chill. It's fine. There are no butterflies in his stomach (there is no war in Ba Sing Se). In fact, he's so chill he's tired too and one difficult locating of his watch later - so he had to awkwardly pat his bedside table with one hand without looking for about two minutes because he didn't want to disturb Jaebum, what of it? It's fine, he's just being courteous, the guy's asleep after all - he finds that's not surprising because it's half one in the morning. So with one more peek at Jaebum's sleeping face (which _isn't_ cute, why is Jinyoung's brain _like_ this), Jinyoung closes his eyes, determined to sleep too and then wake up and not make it weird.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so that was long huh?  
> hey so I have like 2 weeks of no/intro lectures so I guess updates will be more frequent for a while   
> hmu with thoughts!! either here or on tumblr ~~also it's madness it took me, the worlds biggest bottom!jaebum advocate, so long to write just that~~


	3. The morning after (way better than a hangover)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song for this chapter is [annabel jones x nebbra - stay](https://youtu.be/wLhqIG2Vw9M) its good and kinda appropriate I think

Thankfully (or maybe not), Jinyoung wakes up first, fumbles again for his watch, squints at it to see it's half seven so way too early to be doing anything on a Saturday morning. Not that he could be doing anything right now considering Jaebum is even more on top of him than when he'd originally fallen asleep, head nestled in the crook of Jinyoung's neck and their legs tangled together and arms tight around his chest. He's incredibly warm (as usual) but like this he feels more like a space heater than a flame, just pleasantly warm enough that Jinyoung could sleep without a duvet.

Jinyoung's traitorous heart kicks into double time again when Jaebum sighs against his neck and nuzzles closer, soft hair tickling Jinyoung's chin and he can't stop himself from combing his fingers through it gently, smiling to himself when he unconsciously shifts into it. Then he catches himself and his hand freezes on the back of Jaebum's neck; what is he doing? Why is this-

His internal confusion is brought to an abrupt halt when Jaebum lets out a little content noise and slowly shifts, leans up on one arm to blink sleepily down at Jinyoung.

"Hey," he murmurs, then grins when his sleep-hoarse voice shoots straight to Jinyoung's cock, "good morning to you too." His pink hair is sticking up all over the place and his face is puffy and his eyes are barely open and there's a red pressure mark on his cheek but for some reason that all adds up to something adorable and Jinyoung's chest feels like being squashed by something more than just Jaebum's body.

"Hi." Jinyoung squeaks and Jaebum laughs, low and rumbling and his smile is adorably wide and Jinyoung's brain short-circuits, unable to decide whether to concentrate on the cute part or the sexy part so he just doesn't say anything else and blushes bright pink. Jaebum pokes his cheek, still grinning.

"You're so easily flustered, Jinyoungie, it's so cute." He coos and Jinyoung huffs and looks away, just turning even pinker (he must be rivalling Jaebum's hair by now). Jaebum slowly sits up, keeps his shoulders low and shifts onto his knees to give Jinyoung a lovely view of his ass before pushing himself up and kneeling over one of Jinyoung's thighs, then he stretches with an indecent moan, head tipping back to show off the red and violet marks littering his neck. Jinyoung gulps, eyes running down his chest and thighs and back up to his face to see him grinning at him with the tip of his tongue caught between his teeth, eyes glittering a deep yellow. With a sigh, Jinyoung sits up slowly, reaches over to turn his bedside lamp on, leaning on his hands when Jaebum doesn't move off his leg.

"I need to go shower." He mumbles, keeping his eyes on the bedcovers but Jaebum just tilts his head up gently, moves in close with a lazy smile.

"Kiss me first?" He whispers a hair away from Jinyoung's lips. Swallowing hard, Jinyoung shuts his eyes and closes the last of the distance. It's surprisingly chaste and almost sweet, just a still press of lips with the two of them parting only seconds later, but Jaebum's eyes are heavy and Jinyoung's stomach is flipping over and then Jaebum kisses him again, slides a hand into his hair. He tastes as sweet as ever which just makes Jinyoung all the more self-conscious about his likely very unpleasant morning breath, though not self-conscious enough to stop kissing him and they only break apart when Jaebum stops it with a laugh that's far too deep to be good for Jinyoung's health. Jinyoung flushes and goes to push him away, struggling to rein in his ragged breathing, but he doesn't move, just shifts in closer and kisses him again, smiling into it.

"Why are you laughing?" Jinyoung asks petulantly, though it's mostly lost against Jaebum's lips. He just chuckles again and Jinyoung curses himself as his cock jumps. Eyes now a light orange, Jaebum holds Jinyoung's face between his palms, thumbs stroking his cheeks and Jinyoung's heart speeds up for a different reason, one he doesn't want to examine too closely right now.

"Oh, no reason," he purrs; Jinyoung narrows his eyes, goes to shove him off for real this time but he leans in to peck Jinyoung's lips again and the strength leaves his arms, "just thinking about all the things I want to do to you." Another kiss and this time Jinyoung can't help arching up into him, grabs his hips to steady himself, cock beginning to fill out against his thigh. Jaebum's hands go back to Jinyoung's hair and fist in it tightly, the pinpricks of pain sending tingles through his whole body. "How about you shower in a little while, Jinyoungie?" He feels the words more than he hears them and finds himself nodding before even consciously making the decision to do so, Jaebum's grin sharp against his mouth before he's being pushed onto his back with Jaebum's body pressing him into the mattress. Jinyoung runs his hands up Jaebum's back, digs his nails into his shoulders and he hums, pushes his thigh up between Jinyoung's legs and grinds down onto him slowly. "You know, I was a little surprised yesterday, Jinyoungie," Jaebum purrs, kissing his way down Jinyoung's throat, "you fucked me even better than some centuries' old demons have." Jinyoung flushes but laughs, combs his fingers through fluffy candy hair as Jaebum sucks a bruise onto his collarbone.

"You're welcome." He says airily (he's totally not internally applauding himself) and Jaebum smiles against his chest, pushes himself up to look Jinyoung in the eye, irises glittering a bright amber.

"I do hope you'll be able to repeat it in the future-" his eyes flash crimson- "though not today, I think." Jinyoung cocks an eyebrow, mentally patting himself on the back for how cool he's outwardly being; it's fine, Jaebum can't read his mind, he can't tell he's actually a gooey mess of growing arousal and nerves inside. Jaebum's grin curls and he runs his tongue over his lips, eyes steadily dropping closer to red as Jinyoung can't help tracking its movements. "Today you're just going to lie back and enjoy yourself while I do all the hard work." He punctuates it with a wink, leans up to peck Jinyoung on the lips quickly before he's tilting Jinyoung's head back to press his lips to his pulse, his other hand skimming down to wrap his fingers around Jinyoung's cock.

Eyes fluttering, Jinyoung combs his fingers through Jaebum's hair and lets out a sigh as he goes back to getting apparent revenge for the countless bruises Jinyoung gave him last night, loosely stroking him to full hardness as he makes his way down to lick over Jinyoung's nipple. Jinyoung can't help pushing up into it, biting his lip on a breathy gasp when Jaebum's fingers linger over the head of his cock, still mouthing his way down Jinyoung's chest.

"You're so hard already." He murmurs, breath tickling Jinyoung's stomach before he shifts back up, presses hot lips to Jinyoung's jaw; Jinyoung blushes, tugs reproachfully on his hair. So what if he is? It's not that surprising. "I'm not making fun of you, sweetheart, it's not a bad thing." Jinyoung hums sceptically but he kisses back when Jaebum's lips return to his, breath shuddering out of him when his tongue flicks along the roof of his mouth. "Is it alright if I ride you, Jinyoungie?" Jaebum breathes against his mouth with a smug grin like he knew exactly how Jinyoung was going to answer, but what kind of idiot would say no to that? He pushes himself up, runs a hand through his hair and just looks down at Jinyoung for a moment with a slight smirk (Jinyoung doesn't know how it's possible for someone to be so hot), then straddles Jinyoung's hips, moves a little higher onto his knees, spreads his thighs a little wider and leans back on his right hand, left trailing down his chest and past his hard cock. Jinyoung watches with wide eyes as his now glistening fingers probe his asshole, presses two in knuckle-deep without so much as a flinch, a pleased grin curling his lips up when Jinyoung swallows hard.

"Doesn't that hurt? Going so fast like that?" Jinyoung blurts and turns bright red when Jaebum laughs, all deep and rough and shooting straight to Jinyoung's cock, pulls his fingers out to slide them back in as far as he can and shakes his head.

"Not at all," he says, voice wavering slightly with each movement of his hand, "I'm a succubus, sweetheart, I'm literally made for this-" he cuts off with a jerk and a little gasp, eyelids fluttering over bright red eyes with his fingers as deep as they can go, slides them out to press three back in, head falling back with a quiet moan and precum beading from his cock. Jinyoung's fists clench in the sheets then he sits up quickly, grabs the back of Jaebum's neck to pull him down into a kiss as his other hand pushes between his legs, pulls his fingers from his ass to replace them with his own, once again floored by just how hot and tight he is. "Thought I said you should just lie back and relax, sweetheart." He murmurs with a grin but his hips roll down onto Jinyoung's fingers and he lets out a pleased noise when Jinyoung pumps them in.

"Then tell me to keep still." Jinyoung replies, arching a challenging eyebrow and he just grins, cups Jinyoung's jaw with both hands and kisses him, tip of his tongue flicking along Jinyoung's lip until he lets him lick deeper into his mouth, moaning deep in his chest when Jinyoung curls his fingers and grazes his prostate. His head falls back when Jinyoung keeps at it, wraps his other hand around his cock, breath coming faster and he sounds like he's grinning when he moans out Jinyoung's name, fingers tangling in Jinyoung's hair as he mouths down his throat, pressing kisses to old bruises and biting new ones onto unmarked skin.

"Why the hell did you wait so long to get assertive, Jinyoungie?" Jinyoung wrinkles his nose, blushes, but doesn't say anything, just thrusts his fingers in a little harder and grins at the jerk of Jaebum's hips and the little breathy gasp he lets out. "That wasn't a complaint, sweetheart, I like this side of you." He laughs, tugs on Jinyoung's hair until he lifts his head, ducks down to kiss him again, lets Jinyoung bite his lip in reproach, crimson eyes heavy and amused. His hand slips down to push Jinyoung's away, breath catching when he curls his fingers one last time against his prostate, fingertips catching on his rim, then he pushes on Jinyoung's chest, grins down at him as he takes Jinyoung's cock in his hand, slicking him up quickly and chuckling when Jinyoung can't help bucking up into his hand. He bites his lip as he lines himself up, eyelids fluttering as he slowly sits on Jinyoung's cock and Jinyoung's eyes fall shut, thighs trembling and he definitely needs to work on his goddamn stamina because he already feels like he could come and they've barely started but he's just so goddamn hot.

"Fuck, you feel so good, Jinyoungie-" Jaebum moans, biting his lip as he lifts himself up to grind back down, tightening a little around Jinyoung's cock; he shivers, gasping in return but he grabs Jaebum's thigh, digs his nails in as he hisses at him.

"You need to be quiet, my housemates will hear-" he has to bite his tongue on a loud noise of his own though when Jaebum grins and clenches down hard around him, hot pleasure pooling in his gut as he starts to ride him properly, thighs flexing under Jinyoung's hands each time he pushes himself up, little sighs escaping his lips every time he sinks back down.

"Maybe you should gag me then." He purrs, leaning down to kiss Jinyoung before he can say anything to that out-of-left-field (and maybe quite tempting) statement but his hips keep moving; Jinyoung smoothes a hand down his back to grab a handful of his ass, plants his feet on the bed and bucks his hips up as Jaebum rolls his back down and he lets out a low moan against Jinyoung's lips then pushes himself back up, deep red eyes heavy-lidded. Head tipping back, he covers his mouth, muffling whines into his hand as he bounces down harder onto Jinyoung's cock to meet his thrusts up, thighs taut and trembling under Jinyoung's hands; he slides them up, digs nails into Jaebum's hips then wraps his fingers around his cock, stroking up each time he comes down and he shudders, whimpers into his palm, nails of the other hand clawing at Jinyoung's side.

Gasping as his orgasm quickly builds, Jinyoung rolls his hips upwards a little harder as his fingers tighten a little and he swipes a thumb over the head of Jaebum's cock and he almost collapses onto Jinyoung's chest, just catches himself, nails dragging red lines down Jinyoung's stomach as his walls spasm around Jinyoung's cock and he comes with a jerk, wine-red eyes fluttering and swollen red lips parted on a choked moan. Just seeing that would be enough to send Jinyoung over the edge with him but coupled with the aching tightness around his cock he's unable to stop himself from spilling into Jaebum's ass, clamps a hand over his mouth so he doesn't cry out, back arching up off the bed. Jaebum's panting and shivering but he flashes Jinyoung a lop-sided, fucked-out grin, runs a hand through his hair and grips it, steadies himself with his other hand on Jinyoung's stomach as he keeps rolling his hips down albeit a little irregularly, rides Jinyoung through it until he whimpers and physically grabs his hips to stop him, aftershocks tipping over from wonderful to uncomfortable.

Dark eyes heavy, he slides his hands up Jinyoung's chest and leans forwards to kiss him slowly. Still breathing hard, Jinyoung clutches at his broad shoulders, sighing into the kiss as he shifts and sends shockwaves through Jinyoung with the stimulation to his painfully oversensitive cock, though it's making a valiant if vain effort to get hard again. He trails a hand down Jaebum's side, skims over his hip.

"Can I, um-" thankfully he doesn't have to finish the sentence because Jaebum sighs and kisses his way down Jinyoung's neck, nuzzles into his shoulder with a mumbled affirmative; a shiver runs down his back when Jinyoung carefully shifts his hips up to pull out but he keeps his face buried firmly in Jinyoung's shoulder so Jinyoung can't see his expression. Hesitantly, Jinyoung combs his fingers through his hair, wondering if he's okay but he speaks before he can ask.

"So much for you not having to do anything, huh?" He chuckles into Jinyoung's neck, shifts closer with a sigh before rolling off of Jinyoung, flopping onto his back with his eyes closed. It's only then, however, that Jinyoung realises how goddamn cold it is in his room, which is the only reason he scoots over to plaster himself to Jaebum's side; his eyes flutter open and he looks down at Jinyoung with a small smile, obligingly wriggles an arm under Jinyoung's shoulders to hug him closer.

"Shut it, it's cold." He mumbles, sleepiness starting to take over him again despite having only woken up a little while ago. Jaebum doesn't say anything, just leans in to capture his lips with a knowing grin. Jinyoung sighs softly and he cups Jaebum's jaw, lips sliding together achingly slowly and starting to tie Jinyoung's stomach back into a knot, a gasp escaping him when Jaebum tugs him closer, one scalding palm flat against the small of his back to pull their bodies flush together-

There's an almighty crash from downstairs that has Jinyoung almost head-butting Jaebum in his haste to sit bolt upright and stare at his door in alarm. Jaebum doesn't sit up, just stares at Jinyoung with a vaguely disgruntled expression; Jinyoung smiles awkwardly down at him, looks over at the door again, then sighs, scoots to the edge of the bed and stands up, wiping his mouth on his hand, fingers lingering just slightly on his lips. "I should go check that everyone's alive." He mumbles, shaking himself and yanking a drawer open to grab some boxers.

"Is that a hint for me to leave?" Jaebum asks dryly but he doesn't look offended when Jinyoung glances over at him. He looks amused in fact, has fully rolled onto his side to prop his head up on his hand, eyes back to pale yellow.

"I- I'm not trying to kick you out or anything, I just-" He splutters as he pulls his boxers into place but Jaebum just snorts, laughs when Jinyoung realises his stomach is still spattered with cum and balks, grabbing a handful of tissues to clean himself off.

"You don't want to risk anyone seeing me, right?" He shakes his head with a grin and sits up, figure blurring enough that Jinyoung has to look away and when he looks back he's wearing black jeans and a loose white shirt, collar left just open enough for Jinyoung to catch a glimpse of his collarbones when he moves. "Have I done everything you wanted?" He asks as he stands, stretching his arms over his head. Jinyoung nods, turns a bit pink when he pads over to press a fleeting kiss to Jinyoung's lips. "I'll see you soon, Jinyoungie." And the air pops and he's gone but there's an odd hollowness in his stomach (as though Jaebum took something with him when he vanished).

Smoothing his hair down, Jinyoung heaves a sigh and trudges to his wardrobe, pulls on some sweatpants and a sweater and heads for the door, padding down the cold stairs (he should have put some socks on). Jennie's door is hanging open and there's more muffled swearing from inside; Jinyoung heads over, raps on it a few times. There's a long wordless groan then:

"Come in." She sounds rough. He pushes the door open to see her lying face down on the floor with a bundle of clothes under her head as a makeshift pillow, still in her dress and tights from last night with Jisoo dead to the world on her bed in her pyjamas, snoring softly with her arms wrapped tightly around a bundle of duvet.

"Everything okay?" Jinyoung asks quietly. There's another groan and she turns her head a little to glare vaguely in his direction. She's still wearing most of her make-up, eyeliner smudged around her eyes like a raccoon and onto some of the clothes underneath them.

"Fine. Go away." She grumbles. Biting back a laugh, Jinyoung arranges his face into something sympathetic.

"I heard a bang." He explains and she just turns her face away from him.

"Fell out of bed. 'M fine. Let me sleep." Jinyoung snorts.

"Alright." He pulls the door to, looks over at Momo's door as it creaks open and she sticks her head out; in contrast to Jennie, she's bare-faced, looks mostly awake and even smiles at him. "Hey, Mo, how you feeling?" She shrugs, rubbing her eyes.

"I'm okay, just a bit tired." Jinyoung has no idea how she does it but she never seems to get hangovers; it's really annoying considering how bad his tend to be. Mind you, she does tend to stop drinking when she's tipsy whereas Jinyoung just keeps going as long as other people are drinking, so maybe it's not that surprising.

"Well, you can go back to bed for a while, it's Saturday after all." She smiles, nods, then cocks her head at him curiously.

"Everything alright with you? I thought I heard some noise coming from your room when I got home." Jinyoung freezes, internally cursing himself out, but he forces an innocent smile.

"What time did you get in?" She purses her lips, thinking.

"About one? I came in a bit earlier than the others." Shit.

"I think I was asleep, I don't know, maybe something fell over or something?" Jinyoung doesn't sound convincing even to himself but she nods thoughtfully then smiles trustingly.

"That's probably it-" she yawns, covering her mouth with her hand- "sorry, I'm going to go back to bed. See you later." With a final beam, she shuts the door and Jinyoung breathes out a long sigh of relief, head drooping to his chest. Only for it to snap back up immediately again when she opens the door immediately. "Oh yeah, you left your phone and laptop in the living room, so I brought them up here so the others wouldn't fall onto them or anything when they came home." She passes them over to him with a sweet smile and Jinyoung takes them automatically, smiling tightly but screaming at himself for being so careless. Talk about advertising the fact that he's doing something illicit involving magic, why else would he leave that stuff downstairs? Still, at least Jennie and Yoongi didn't see it; bless Momo for being so considerate. Damn it, now he feels even worse for lying.

"Thanks, Momo." She just smiles tiredly and waves, shuts the door with a click. Jinyoung runs his stuff back upstairs, dumps it on his bed and glares at it before jogging back down the stairs, heading down to the living room to see Yoongi sound asleep on the sofa. He doesn't wake even when Jinyoung bends over him, only stirs when he actually pokes his shoulder and bats his hand away with a grunt. "You okay?" Another grunt. Jinyoung chooses to take it as an affirmative and stands up straight, rubs his eyes as he heads back towards his room. At least no one's dead, though he's now regretting getting Jaebum to leave for such a pointless reason when he could have gone back to sleep on his own personal space heater. Then he catches himself, shaking his head as he trudges up the stairs; what the hell, Jinyoung? What is going on with him recently?

(He knows. He just doesn't want to admit it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao my update schedule is wack lads  
> hope u enjoyed tho!! as always hmu if u want here or on tumblr


	4. The end of something

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk I didn't really listen to anything in particular during this chapter so just enjoy this recommendation from my personal jams: [this remix of bebe rexha - (not) the one)](https://youtu.be/sZ4qUoOe_C8)

It's finally here, the moment he'd been initially looking forward to but recently dreading; his last interview with Jaebum. Jinyoung's not sure how he feels about it because while it's nice that he's almost finished his dissertation research (one of few people who has, might he add), it's also leaving him feeling a little strange, disappointed even. It feels kind of anticlimactic to have finished it having not even had a real threat of getting caught (despite his apparent best efforts to the contrary) and there's a weird hollowness that won't leave his stomach at the moment, but, well, he's got shit to do, so there's no time to be wallowing in whatever is happening in his head.

Jinyoung doesn't bother sitting down as he recites the script, ears popping and circle blurring and Jaebum appears, also standing.

"Hi, Jinyoungie." He says with a grin, pushes overlong black hair out of his eyes as Jinyoung mumbles a greeting and smudges one of the runes with his toe, stepping back towards his desk. Jaebum just stares at him for a moment, lips pursed slightly, smirking when Jinyoung glares at him suspiciously from his wheelie chair.

"What?" Jinyoung asks, not quite snapping but getting towards it but Jaebum doesn't say anything immediately, just crosses the room to stop in front of him, bends down until there's barely a centimetre between their lips with his hands on the arms of Jinyoung's chair.

"Would you kiss me, Jinyoungie?" He murmurs, hot breath sweet from the not-cigarettes against Jinyoung's mouth and he has to make a real effort not to just do that, but he manages and leans back a little to level an unimpressed stare at Jaebum.

"After my questions." Jaebum pouts, blinks down at Jinyoung with wide pleading eyes and Jinyoung can feel himself wavering.

"Please? I won't ask again until you're done, I promise." He wheedles and Jinyoung (to no one's surprise) caves, grumbles an assent before leaning forward; Jaebum sighs into the kiss, seems content for once to keep it chaste, just gentle pressure and slow movements until Jinyoung pulls away a few seconds later. He smiles, looks ridiculously pleased, but he keeps his word and straightens up, pads over to Jinyoung's bed to flop onto it with a contented groan. Confused, Jinyoung just eyes him as he burrows under Jinyoung's duvet, sits up with it cuddled around himself; he looks oddly small wrapped up in its bulk with his hair flopping into his eyes again and Jinyoung's belly feels like it's full of something bigger than butterflies.

"You alright?" Jinyoung asks a little apprehensively. With a non-committal hum, Jaebum nods, blinking slowly and it's then that Jinyoung notices the shadows under his eyes.

"Yeah, I'm fine-" he smiles slightly- "I'm just tired. Had an... Eventful night." He settles back against the wall with a chuckle.

"Eventful how?" Jinyoung asks carefully, expecting some detailed description of whatever he'd been doing with some demon and squashing down the odd hollow feeling that opens up in his chest when he thinks about that, but he just laughs again, shaking his head with an amused grin, eyes a pale yellow.

"Not what you're thinking, sweetheart-" he winks when Jinyoung flushes- "there was something of a coup and well, things tend to get a bit hectic for a while after that-" he covers his mouth as he yawns, shaking his head to clear it and blinking hard- "I'm glad you summoned me actually, unpleasant as it is. I don't like being around during the hours after a take-over. Everyone gets so murderous." He wrinkles his nose and cuddles the blanket closer around himself. Jinyoung's at something of a loss for words if he's being honest, just stares at him aghast as he tries to figure out which bit of that to talk about first but Jaebum just laughs, grabs one of Jinyoung's pillows to cuddle it to his chest and rest his chin on it.

"Summoning is unpleasant for you?" Jinyoung asks weakly, guilt starting to settle heavy in his stomach because damn if he hasn't been causing him a _lot_ of discomfort in that case; Jaebum looks a little startled at the direction he's taken, lifts his head from the pillow, eyes wide.

"I mean, yeah, it isn't that fun-" he peers at him curiously, head cocked to the side- "didn't you know that?" Jinyoung shrinks into his seat a little.

"No, I didn't," he grumbles, scratching the back of his neck, "I'm sorry, it didn't even occur to me." Jaebum stares at him like he's grown a second head for a second, then breaks into a grin, shaking his head in disbelief.

"It's alright, it's not like there's another way of getting me here-" Isn't there? Jinyoung starts to rack his brains for something because it feels like there should be another way, it's the kind of thing someone would have theorised about in the past, but Jaebum continues before he can make any sort of headway- "though you are the first summoner to ever apologise for it, so thank you." There's an odd softness to his eyes which, as he watches, fade from yellow to a dark black. Jinyoung flushes and looks down at his notebook, picks up a pencil to tap it against the desk. "You're still so nervous around me sometimes, Jinyoungie," Jaebum says and Jinyoung, just to prove his point it seems, blushes even darker red, "you don't need to be." Jinyoung laughs slightly but he's frowning down at his notebook. Easy for him to say, he's not the one facing an actual sex demon every time he looks over at his bed. "I do mean that, you know?." Jinyoung just hums, goes back to writing out his notes but Jaebum doesn't want to drop it, it seems. "Sweetheart, please look at me." Tamping down on a groan, Jinyoung sits up, spins in his chair to face Jaebum who's got the lower half of his face pushed into the pillow he's still hugging. He withdraws from it to speak, rests his chin on it with a curious expression. "Why are you still nervous?" He's watching Jinyoung very carefully, dark eyes tracking every move his face makes as if that's going to make him less nervous.

"I don't know." Jinyoung says simply because it's sort of the truth; it's a combination of things that he doesn't know how to put into words that well: just how attractive he finds Jaebum and his intensity towards Jinyoung, his unending confidence in topics Jinyoung's never been good at talking about, the nagging doubts over his own strange feelings, the ever-present fear that they'll be caught out and something terrible will happen and probably more that he hasn't found any words for at all. For the first time, Jinyoung's genuinely tempted to lift the wards preventing Jaebum from reading his mind just so he doesn't have to try and explain it out loud. He's still watching Jinyoung with a small frown, but it looks more contemplative than irritated, then he smiles slightly, a tiny, almost rueful thing.

"Fair enough." He looks away, pushes his face back into the pillow and Jinyoung has a horrible feeling that he's said something wrong; mind scrambling for something to say so he doesn't look so _sad_ , Jinyoung's hands fist on his thighs and he looks at the floor.

"I just-" Jaebum's head lifts up but Jinyoung keeps his eyes down, feels his face light up even brighter- "you, well, I'm not-" he closes his eyes, lets out a long breath and tries to find some words- "I'm not used to having someone focus on me like- like you do. It's intimidating." Those are surprisingly good words, he's proud of himself. "And I'm used to being the confident one in most situations and I don't like feeling uncertain of what to do." Damn, he's doing well, mortifying as this may be. Good job brain. He doesn't dare open his eyes though (too nervous).

"You know, you make me nervous too, Jinyoung." That whole thing is stunning enough that Jinyoung overcomes his nerves at looks up to stare in disbelief at Jaebum. He looks anything but though, is smiling slightly at him.

"Really." Jinyoung says flatly, though he knows Jaebum can't be lying, what with the whole compulsory truthfulness. He nods, smile widening and crinkling his eyes.

"I just have more practice at hiding it, considering, you know, confidence is kind of a big thing when you have to sleep with people to not die." He waves an airy hand and laughs and Jinyoung can't help cracking a smile too. "But you do. Make me nervous that is." Jinyoung rubs the back of his neck sheepishly.

"Why?" He can't help asking; sure he's aware he's attractive but not by like, succubus standards surely? Jaebum inclines his head, runs a hand through his hair with his lips pursed as though he's thinking how to phrase something.

"Well I can't read your mind, for one-" ah, of course- "but also it's because of, well. This." He gestures vaguely at his face; Jinyoung blinks uncomprehendingly at him and he laughs a little but unless Jinyoung's eyes are playing tricks on him, there's a faint dusting of pink on his cheeks and he's having trouble meeting Jinyoung's gaze. "Just, this is pretty much what I look like, just less-" he makes another vague gesture at his forehead and up, like he's mimicking horns- "demonic." Jinyoung nods slowly but still has no idea what he's going on about and that clearly shows on his face because he laughs again but a little more manically, almost squeakily. "I usually have a different face to hide behind, Jinyoung. But with you I don't. It's a little terrifying." His continued use of Jinyoung's actual name coupled with the bare honesty of his words has Jinyoung losing his breath a little, that little warm feeling he keeps getting around Jaebum blossoming through his whole chest.

"Then why did you look like this?" Jinyoung asks softly. Jaebum's definitely blushing now but he keeps his head up and shrugs.

"I don't really know. You asked to see what I looked like and I just-" he shrugs, smiling bashfully- "Showed you. Something about you made me want you to see me." Jinyoung can feel his heart pounding in his chest, heavy and thumping and he's finding he has no choice any more about whether to examine that feeling he keeps getting; he really likes Jaebum. A lot.

Oh, this is very _, very_ bad.

"You okay?" Jaebum's voice cuts through his internal panic, seems genuinely concerned when Jinyoung looks up from his notes with wide eyes. He doesn't look convinced when Jinyoung quickly nods, squashes the pillow down against his stomach and frowns at him. "You sure? You went a little pale." Damn it. Jinyoung smiles, tries to hide the fact that he's still reeling from the realisation that honestly shouldn't have been as big a surprise as it was (he's always been good at ignoring his feelings when necessary) and shrugs.

"Yeah, sorry I just- forgot about a deadline I have." He bluffs and Jaebum thankfully buys it, nodding and smiling at him slightly. Jinyoung sighs sharply and glares down at his notebook. "So, um, today I wanted to ask you about relationships in your plane, so uh. What kind of relationships do you guys have in your plane?" He asks lamely and Jaebum laughs.

"I mean, pretty much anything you have in yours?" How surprising. Jinyoung sighs at himself and writes that down.

"Okay but in terms of say, sexual or romantic relationships, how do things work? Like is monogamy encouraged or not, is polyamory more of a thing, et cetera." Jinyoung waves his hand as he talks, hoping it's making more sense than he feels it is but thankfully Jaebum hums in understanding.

"In general monogamy is around but really not that common considering any romantic relationships don't really happen that often, especially for us." He winks when Jinyoung glances over. "Succubi I mean." Jinyoung just rolls his eyes but Jaebum grins anyway; ignoring the stupid little disappointed sinking feeling in his chest, Jinyoung makes a note of that.

"But they do happen?" Jaebum hums an affirmative, puts the pillow aside to lean back on his hands, the duvet falling mostly off his shoulders

"Sometimes." He's staring rather intensely at him when Jinyoung glances over at him from his notes but he doesn't stop even when Jinyoung pulls a face at him, one corner of his mouth just twitching up a little.

"So can demons fall in love?" Jinyoung blurts, maybe just _a touch_ more bluntly than he was going for (bloody hell Jinyoung) but Jaebum laughs, doesn't seem any the wiser to Jinyoung's inner turmoil.

"They can," he says simply, "shocking as that may sound." He just grins when Jinyoung wrinkles his nose at him. "It's not common but it does happen sometimes." Interesting. Jinyoung chews on his lip as he writes that down slowly, wondering whether to ask the next question that pops into his head; it's not for his research, just for his own personal curiosity and the longer he thinks about it the more it burns in his head.

"Have you been in love before?" He asks, almost too quietly to be heard but Jaebum apparently does if his spluttered laugh is any indication.

"N-" whatever he was going to say (no, obviously) sticks in his throat and it takes him by surprise; he coughs, looks down with wide eyes before he manages to rearrange his expression into something more neutral and Jinyoung watches raptly as he looks back up with a slightly tight smile- "um, not- not yet." There's a weird uncertainty behind his unruffled mask, something incredibly confused and something almost approaching fear but he's clearly trying to hide it and Jinyoung doesn't want to overstep, no matter his burning curiosity, so he leaves it alone, just nods and looks back down at his notes, licking his lips with a small gulp.

"Right, um-" god where does he go from here? "what about friends? I mean, I'm assuming you have friends." Jaebum barks a slightly squeaky laugh but looks a little more at ease when Jinyoung dares to glance at him.

"Of course I have friends Jinyoungie. Do you?" He asks teasingly and Jinyoung just rolls his eyes, though he's internally relieved Jaebum's back to his usual self.

"Yes." He says curtly but Jaebum just smiles, leans forward to rest his elbow on his knee and his chin in his palm. "So what sort of importance is placed on different kinds of relationship? Like in this plane-" he explains when Jaebum's eyes glaze over and he shakes his head blankly- "there's a common and fairly stupid misconception-" Jaebum snorts at this- "that romantic relationships are somehow preferable over friendships. Is there anything like that in your plane?" Jaebum's lips twitch and he straightens back up, an oddly wistful expression clouding his face.

"It's the opposite in mine, actually," he answers quietly, "romantic relationships, at least among succubi, are not really considered a good thing." Jinyoung frowns, leans his head on his fist as he stares over at Jaebum.

"Why not?" Jaebum snorts softly, grabs the pillow and hugs it again.

"A lot of us think it's dangerous, that you're basing your survival on one person assuming you're going for a monogamous relationship, which is usually a bad idea-" he doesn't look like he agrees with that- "but most of us just don't like them in general, think that they're pointless." Jinyoung raises his eyebrows at Jaebum's somewhat disdainful expression.

"What do you think of them?" He asks with what's only professional curiosity and _nothing else_. Jaebum's mouth twists into a wry smile.

"I've never really been one for majority opinions-" he grins when Jinyoung rolls his eyes, biting back an amused snort- "so I'm not necessarily averse to the idea. Never really had the opportunity to try it though." He shrugs. "I don't know really. But I certainly don't think they're pointless. And they're only dangerous if you don't talk about things with your significant other." Jinyoung hums, looks back down at his notebook to try and hide the silly hope that's blossoming in his chest (this has been a real rollercoaster today).

"Fair enough," he murmurs, can feel Jaebum's eyes fixed on the back of his head but doesn't dare look up, "so, um-" Jinyoung's voice catches in his throat and he stares down at his notebook in disbelief- "that's- that's it." He says haltingly, eyes wide. Jaebum hums, a grin in his voice when he speaks.

"You should come over here then." Jinyoung sets his pencil down with a click.

"No, that's- those were the last questions I needed to ask you at all. The interviews are done." He can't look away from the list of questions, all answered. He should be pleased. He's done. Finished his research. But he isn't pleased.

"What?" Jaebum's staring at him blankly when he glances over, eyebrows pulling together and up and Jinyoung shrugs, scratches the back of his neck.

"That's all the questions I have for you. We're-" the word 'done' sticks in his throat- "I don't need to interview you any more." Jaebum just blinks at him for a moment then he looks down at his hands in his lap, brow still pinched.

"You mean- I- we-" he's having uncharacteristic difficulty getting his words out, shoves a frustrated hand through his hair- "this is... It? You- I won't see you any more?" His eyes, liquid black, lift back up to stare beseechingly at Jinyoung who finds he can't say anything, yes _or_ no, tongue tied and not sure what to do in the face of Jaebum's obvious unhappiness at that idea; he gulps, shrugs slightly, heart falling through the floor when his face falls even further and he looks down at his hands in his lap.

"Do- do you want to?" Jinyoung blurts with an odd mixture of nervousness and hope bubbling in his chest and Jaebum's head snaps back up, a slight flush painting his cheeks and he fidgets in place but inclines his head with a slight sheepish smile and a small laugh.

"Yes." Jinyoung opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, scrambling for something to say; this is not what he expected at all. Jaebum has been saying all along he doesn't like this plane but he's happy to come here if it means he can see Jinyoung? What does that even mean? Why do even demon boys have to be so goddamn confusing? This would be so much easier if he wasn't so cute as well as hot (Jinyoung really knows how to pick them)-

Someone tries to open his door, rattling it in its hinges; it startles Jinyoung out of his reverie and his chair and he has to bite his tongue to stop from swearing aloud (thank fuck he locked it), picks himself up off the floor with a glare over at Jaebum who's got a hand clamped over his mouth to stop himself from laughing aloud. Holding his finger to his lips and staring meaningfully at Jaebum until he waves him away, miming locking his lips and throwing away the key despite the broad grin still on his face, Jinyoung takes one step towards the door as whoever it is knocks quickly.

"What?" He calls shortly. There's an irritated huff from the other side.

"Jinyoung do you have the notes for Song's lectures? I left mine at home, I'm trying to do the last of this week's tutorial. Can I come in?" It's Jisoo and she sounds pretty harried. Not surprising, considering the tutorial's due tomorrow and it's ten p.m. right now.

"No I'm- I'm not wearing any trousers?" Jinyoung haltingly gives the first excuse he can think of and Jaebum snorts softly, smirks at him when Jinyoung glares over at him, pointedly looking him up and down but he just makes a cut it out gesture with his hand, eyes wide. "Let me get dressed then I'll come down to give them to you." He replies but she just groans.

"Oh just open the door, I'm gay, I don't care if you're not wearing pants!" Jisoo calls irritably and Jinyoung freezes. Open the door. Why is that ringing a weird bell in his head? "Just pass them out then!" He ignores her and Jaebum's looking at him curiously when he spins around to stare at the shut door but he ignores him too, struggling to remember what it is that's bugging him. Something about his first year modules. Something about doors. No, not doors, but something similar- "Hey! Are you even listening to me Jinyoung?" Jisoo snaps, apparently disgruntled.

"Yeah sorry, just- I'll be down in like, ten minutes." He replies distractedly; she huffs, vague swearing audible through the door but there are footsteps trudging away.

"Are you okay?" Jaebum asks dubiously but he waves him away too, staring holes into the door as he wracks his brain for what he's trying to remember-

"Gates!" He blurts, far too loudly and almost trips over air as he scrambles to his desk, yanks the bottom drawer open to grab the textbook he never uses, flips through it to the index then the chapter he's after; number eleven, gates and portals.

"What are you talking about?" Jaebum asks but Jinyoung's too distracted; gates. Doorways between planes, less of a pulling and more of an invitation. Very dangerous. Very illegal. But very quiet and very subtle, much harder to detect and not requiring much energy and if done correctly, actually not as dangerous as the start of the chapter made out and an apparently much less unpleasant way of crossing planes.

Fucking hell, he's actually seriously considering it; while there may have been a grey area about the legality of letting a demon out of a circle in a semi-controlled environment, there is none about this. It's right there at the top of the page - this is illegal to do without a specific license but damn if Jinyoung isn't going to do it anyway. And to be fair, it's only illegal to stop people who shouldn't be doing it from doing it but Jinyoung's a damn good summoner if he does say so himself; he can easily design a gate which is specific to Jaebum only, so there shouldn't be any risk of bleed-through, even if some other demon were to physically grab him or something before he left.

Fuck, Jaebum, he actually forgot about him in his excitement; he's just staring at Jinyoung, face a mixture of confusion and exasperation and what could be construed as fondness but Jinyoung's not going to look too hard into that right now.

"You definitely want to come back here?" He asks and Jaebum laughs slightly, raises his hands in an 'I guess' gesture.

"Yeah?" He sounds as confused as he looks. Jinyoung nods to himself, frowns down at the open textbook then looks back up and nods again.

"Okay. Give me like a week to figure some stuff out and I'll, um, I'll get back to you." He pats the book and Jaebum just looks at him like he's lost his mind but he laughs again.

"Alright." Jinyoung's attention snaps back to the problem at hand, then it flicks back to Jisoo and he groans, looks around for his bag only to realise it's next to his feet and he grabs it, starts rifling through it for his notes. "Do you, um, do you want me to go?" Comes the almost sheepish question.

"I mean, you don't have to, but I've got things to do at the moment so I won't be very interesting or, you know, having sex with you." Jinyoung answers absently, mumbling triumphantly when he finds the notes Jisoo wanted, then blinks as he realises what he said, blushing a little bit. Jaebum's quiet for a little bit but Jinyoung doesn't dare look over at him, just leafs through his notes to find the right bits.

"Do you mind if I have a nap?" The question is so unexpected that Jinyoung drops the notes, looks over his shoulder in bewilderment but Jaebum's just watching him expectantly, has picked up the pillow to cuddle it again.

"You want to- nap?" He nods.

"Your bed's nicer than mine-" Wow his bed must be awful if a student's is nicer than his (though considering the succubus thing, he probably doesn't sleep in his own very often)- "and like I said, I don't really want to be in Arisk right now, what with all the murdering going on." Jinyoung's shocked into silence for a little while but, well, it's not like he needs to use his bed right now and the whole murdering thing is not good and should probably be avoided and so maybe he doesn't necessarily _want_ Jaebum to go, so why not, right?

"O-okay, just, don't open the door if someone knocks when I'm not in here." He stutters, heart kicking up a gear when he flashes Jinyoung an adorably broad grin and immediately flops onto his side, snuggling into his duvet with a contented sigh. Jinyoung shakes his head to clear it, running a hand through his hair as he makes for the door and down the stairs to Jennie's room. Poking his head around her open door he spies her lying on her bed phone in hand with Jisoo on the floor next to her, notes spread around her and laptop next to her hip, about sixteen tabs open on her web browser. Her head snaps up when he steps inside, makes grabby hands for the notes he holds out. Jennie doesn't even look up.

"You're a lifesaver Jinyoung, thank you so much!" She exclaims when he hands them over, flicking through them quickly. "Of course the one thing I forgot the notes on is the thing on this week's tutorial." She grumbles, pulling her laptop around to start tapping away at it. Jennie's eyes cut over to the pair of them and she smiles, nodding a thanks at Jinyoung and dropping one hand off the edge of the bed to run her fingers through Jisoo's hair.

"Just let me know when you're done with them." Is all Jinyoung says before he's quickly turning, taking the steps two at a time to shove into his room. Sure enough, Jaebum's still there, seems to be asleep already considering he's snoring softly into one of Jinyoung's pillows with the other still cuddled in his arms and fuck if it isn't adorable. Heaving a long sigh, Jinyoung locks his door and bangs his head against it. Quietly. He doesn't want to wake Jaebum after all.

Shit he's in trouble.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys sorry for the wait but my first proper week back at uni was b r u t a l and ive never been so tired rip  
> idk I probs wont always be able to make weekly updates but ill try to update as often as I am able to, please be patient with me!  
> also I have tonsillitis atm so I'm really unwell so that's not gonna help lmao  
> anyway I hope u enjoyed this chapter!! had some interesting developments here so yeah hmu with thoughts here or on tumblr  
> thanks!!


	5. The beginning of something else

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok I would really really recommend u guys listen to this song - [marian hill - I want you](https://youtu.be/Q0DBHo_ne8I) \- while reading but also that u like, listen to/read the lyrics (which are available as a closed caption on that video!!) because they're actually pretty pertinent to where the story is rn!! also it's a great song and a cool video so yeah that too

Jinyoung would like to say he can't believe he's about to do this, but well, he absolutely can; heaving a sigh, he checks over the runes drawn onto his wall (good thing he never got around to putting up any of his posters) for what has to be the fifteenth time and amazingly they're just as perfect as the last fourteen checks. His hesitance can be forgiven however; gates are tricky things to make and can go horribly, _horribly_ wrong if not done correctly and he's making one for what has to be the worst reason ever but he's committed now, he's spent the best part of a week neglecting writing up his dissertation to surreptitiously research how to make a gate and he's not about to let all that work go to waste. Plus he's pretty sure only Yoongi's here right now and his headphones are always practically glued to his ears, so maybe they can get a little loud (he really needs to work on his priorities).

The script is shorter than the one he used for summoning Jaebum and is in ancient Greek this time, something Jinyoung is incredibly grateful for (Latin is the worst) so he breezes through it effortlessly, touches fingertips to the runes on the wall after a barely perceptible hesitant pause. His whole body tingles as magic channels through him, the chalk characters of Jaebum's true name sparking bright fiery orange at the edges, then there's a rush of air and his ears pop and the gate is open; there's no visible change but to someone with magical potential like Jinyoung, it's genuinely terrifying, crackles of energy bursting periodically through an invisible tear in the veil separating the planes, the edges of that tear anchored by the runes on the wall, just visible through the corners of his eyes like a heat haze appearing out of nothing.

Hair standing on end with each burst, Jinyoung fidgets in place, chewing on his lip and tapping his feet and shuffling through the closing script; he's always been bad at waiting, too used to instant results (he's a summoner and a spell-weaver, there's not a lot of waiting around when you're pulling things into place by force) but this _isn't_ a summoning, this is an invitation, a holding-open of a door for someone several paces away. _Jinyoung_ is the one subject to _Jaebum's_ whim this time and he's not entirely sure how he feels about that. Plus there's the added terror of being right next to an open gate; sure it's specifically tailored to Jaebum and he should be the only one able to use it, but that's if and only if Jinyoung has written the wards correctly. Which he has, but that's not really the point; just the idea of some malicious demon slipping through into this world is enough to make Jinyoung queasy to no end.

It's five minutes into the ten Jinyoung had decided to allow before he closed the gate up again (Jaebum would at least know he'd invited him after all) when there's another pop and Jinyoung's hair ruffles in a sudden breeze and then Jaebum's stood in his room, leaning up against his desk with his arms folded over his chest and the smuggest smile Jinyoung's ever seen curving his lips up.

"Hello Jinyoungie." He purrs. Jinyoung mumbles a greeting back, speaks through the closing script and wipes a hand through the middle of the runes on the wall; the gate fizzles out, remarkably underwhelming. He busies himself with putting away all his chalk and collecting his papers together, keeps his eyes on his hands to try and hide the fact that he has no idea how to proceed now; the summonings were okay, he had a structure he could stick to but this is unknown territory, especially considering the revelation he'd had last time. "Ignoring me already, sweetheart?" Comes the amused question and Jinyoung just wrinkles his nose at him as he approaches his desk, yanks open one of the drawers he's standing in front of; he gets the hint when it smacks into his leg, shifts aside with a laugh. He shoves the papers inside and shuts it, goes to properly look at Jaebum but he's closer than he was expecting, only a few inches between them, eyes a pale yellow as they rake over Jinyoung's face, a smirk pulling up one corner of his mouth; Jinyoung gulps, grabs the edge of the desk for support. "I didn't even know that kind of gate was possible, Jinyoungie." He murmurs and Jinyoung flushes; he probably shouldn't. It's really not the kind of thing to be advertising.

"It's- it's pretty illegal," he admits; Jaebum's eyes flash red and his grin widens, "so don't, you know, tell anyone." He chuckles, eyes dropping to Jinyoung's lips and back up.

"Don't worry, it's our little secret." He murmurs and Jinyoung finds himself relaxing; he trusts him (that should be more alarming than it is, even despite the inability to lie thing). "I liked your invitation, by the way. So formal." He teases and Jinyoung's flush deepens.

"Shut up." He mumbles, looking away but Jaebum just moves a fraction closer, still with that broad grin; he seems so goddamn happy to see him, Jinyoung doesn't really know how to react or what to do. He's feeling a little flustered, he's come far enough to admit that to himself.

"I'm n- okay I'm making fun of you a little bit-" he laughs when Jinyoung arches an unimpressed eyebrow at him- "but still, it was cute." Curse his traitorous feelings; heart thumping at the back of his throat, Jinyoung forces down the blossom of warmth in his chest and rolls his eyes. Jaebum's amused grin fades to something smaller and more contemplative, eyes darkening a fraction closer to orange when Jinyoung can't help staring as he licks his lips. "Since you don't need to interview me any more, does that mean I can kiss you now?" Jinyoung's breath shivers out of him but he mumbles an affirmative, eyes falling shut as Jaebum's hand cups the back of his neck and he leans forward, lips scalding but soft against his own. Sighing through his nose, Jinyoung grabs his shirt, twists his fingers in the silky fabric and pulls him closer, breathing in that sweet smokiness he's becoming so accustomed to smelling on his sheets. Unlike last time however, it doesn't stay chaste, both of them moving to deepen it at the same time, heads tilting and Jinyoung's lips parting under a swipe of Jaebum's tongue, his fingers tightening on the back of Jinyoung's neck. Jinyoung's teeth just catches Jaebum's tongue, drag down the length of it as he pushes it deeper and he moans softly, nails digging into Jinyoung's neck and he pushes even closer, grabs Jinyoung's waist to haul him over and pull them flush together, kissing him like his life depends on it. Which it does to a certain extent, a small part of him muses to itself, but the majority of his brain is taken up by the slick slide of lips and the almost too warm body pressed up against him, the hands raking through his hair and pushing up under his top to press flat against his back.

Jinyoung's practically panting when they part but it's okay because Jaebum is too, chest heaving and glossy red lips parted as he stares at Jinyoung with heavy amber eyes, grinning rakishly when Jinyoung can't look up from his mouth; Jinyoung's fist tightens in his shirt and he steps away from the desk, pulling Jaebum with him as he backs towards his bed, lets go only to scoot backwards onto it but Jaebum follows anyway, crawling over him before Jinyoung's head's even hit the covers and leaning down to kiss him again. His knee nudges Jinyoung's thighs apart as his tongue runs over the roof of Jinyoung's mouth and Jinyoung grabs his waist, pushes his hands up under his shirt and digs his nails into his skin, grinning at the little noise it coaxes out of him and then his shirt's just gone and Jinyoung can run his hands along his chest to his heart's content. One of Jaebum's hands tugs questioningly at the hem of Jinyoung's shirt and with a groan he pushes himself up, lets Jaebum tug his shirt up over his head and toss it aside before tugging him back down, running his hands through Jaebum's soft hair and sighing at the warm weight pressing him into the mattress. Kissing his way down Jinyoung's jaw, Jaebum's hand slides down Jinyoung's chest, palm flattening against his stomach and fingertips dipping just under the band of his sweatpants for an instant before he's taking them back out and nipping a tiny bruise onto Jinyoung's throat.

"Can I eat you out, Jinyoungie?" He purrs against his neck and Jinyoung flushes, mouth falling open on a gasp as Jaebum's fingers skim over the growing bulge in his sweatpants, cock jumping in his boxers at the thought. "What was that?" He asks teasingly, lifts back up onto one hand to grin down at Jinyoung, the other cupping him through his pants and just pressing down, amber eyes turning wicked when Jinyoung can't help pushing his hips up into it, chasing that little bit of friction. Flushing, Jinyoung glares at him but pulls him back down into a deep kiss, biting hard on his lip in retaliation but as usual it just makes him let out a pleased hum, knee pushing up higher between Jinyoung's thighs to grind down slowly into him. Nails raking through his hair, Jinyoung rolls his hips up into it, breathing hard as he mouths back down to Jinyoung's throat again. "I still need an answer, sweetheart." Jaebum's grinning as he says this and Jinyoung groans, drags a hand down his face.

"Yes, you can." He mumbles, mortified and Jaebum pushes himself up to smile at him, red eyes glittering.

"I can what?" He asks innocently and it takes a lot of effort to not smack him upside the head but Jinyoung just about manages, settles for glaring as irritably as he can.

"You can eat me out." Jinyoung hisses, covering his eyes with his arm but Jaebum just pulls it away, presses a quick kiss to his lips.

"That wasn't so hard, was it?" He murmurs against them, laughing when Jinyoung shoves him away.

"I hate you." Jinyoung grumbles but there's no real heat to it.

"No you don't." Jaebum says as he shifts down the bed, hands skimming Jinyoung's sides and fingers hooking in the waistband of his sweatpants, climbs off Jinyoung to more easily pull them off and toss them aside then he's back up, settling down with Jinyoung's legs hooked over his shoulders onto his elbows as he opens them wider and then Jinyoung's breath gets knocked out of him as he licks a broad stripe up his cock, tip of his tongue just dipping into the slit and he works him to full hardness, mouths down to bite at his hip before he's shifting _lower_.

"Fuck-" Jinyoung squeaks as Jaebum runs his tongue slowly over his asshole, head knocking back against the pillow with a gasp as he carefully presses it inside, that hot wet heat so different from normal that his cock jerks against his belly and his thighs start trembling already. He bites his lip on a moan when Jaebum hums and licks deeper, the vibrations shooting through him and pooling low in his belly, fingertips pressing hard into Jinyoung's hips and nails just digging in. White hot pleasure shooting through him, Jinyoung can't help pushing his hips into his face, heels pressing against Jaebum's back to urge him closer and he groans when Jaebum rumbles a laugh and pulls away slightly to bite into the meat of his thigh, sucks a bruise on top of it before diving back in and pressing his tongue back inside, tracing over his rim. Jinyoung swears colourfully when Jaebum hums again, pulls away to press a wet kiss to his thigh.

"Touch yourself Jinyoungie." He purrs, deep and authoritative, crimson eyes heavy and lips curving into a wicked smirk before his tongue's licking back into Jinyoung's ass and Jinyoung's head is pressing back against the pillow with a gasp; he does as he's told, wraps his fingers around his cock and tries to match the rhythm of Jaebum's tongue. Jaebum hums again, moves one of his hands around and that's all it takes, two of Jaebum's fingers pressing carefully inside alongside his tongue, the tips just brushing over his prostate and Jinyoung comes in stripes over his fingers and his belly with a harsh gasp, colours flashing behind his screwed-shut eyes with his heels digging into Jaebum's back and he works Jinyoung through it, slips his fingers out when he's done clenching so hard around them but keeps licking him until he whimpers and wriggles in his grip. Only then does he stop, grinning up at Jinyoung, eyes a dark liquid red, as he unwraps Jinyoung's legs from his shoulders and wipes his mouth off on the back of his hand before crawling back up Jinyoung's body at his grabby-handed insistence, straddling one of his thighs.

"You probably don't want to kiss me right n-" He tries to interject when Jinyoung pulls him down to do just that; cute, but very unnecessary since it's not like Jinyoung doesn't fucking know where his mouth just was so he just rolls his eyes and pulls on his neck more insistently, leaning up on his elbow to capture his puffy lips with a retaliatory nip to the lower. He breathes a laugh into it but responds eagerly, tilting his head to deepen it and lets Jinyoung lick into his mouth, shifting his hips to grind down onto Jinyoung's thigh; it's then Jinyoung realises that first of all he's still hard (no shit Sherlock) and second-

"Why are you still wearing pants?" Jinyoung blurts, can't quite believe it and Jaebum laughs but his jeans shimmer and disappear, cock so hard and smearing precum onto Jinyoung's thigh when he grinds down again with a gasp against Jinyoung's lips. He moans low and liquid when Jinyoung slides a hand down his chest to wrap around his cock, stroking him firmly and then Jinyoung has a thought: "Can I suck you off?" He murmurs, as he sits up, still slowly moving his hand, fingers tightening slightly around his length on the upstroke. Jaebum lets out another low noise, breathless and shuddering and he tips his head back at Jinyoung's coaxing, throat bobbing with a gulp when Jinyoung presses his lips to it, sucks a slight bruise onto it.

"If you want to." He breathes, sounds like he's smiling and his hips twitch up into Jinyoung's hand with a hiss. Jinyoung grins, nips hard on his collarbone to hear his sharp intake of breath and feel him shiver then shifts him back, presses a quick kiss to his puffy pink lips.

"Lie down then." Jinyoung murmurs and he grins, cups Jinyoung's face to kiss him hard before obeying, climbing off Jinyoung's lap to lay next to him, pushing a hand through his messy hair. Only slightly dazed, Jinyoung settles between his legs on his elbows, stroking up and down Jaebum's thighs with light nails to see his muscles jump and a shiver run through him, grinning when his head knocks back against the pillow with a huff but he laughs slightly, so he's clearly not that fussed. Satisfied, he leans forward, presses his lips to the base of Jaebum's cock and licking upwards, stomach fluttering at the breathy gasp he lets out and how he shifts slightly, hips pushing upwards just a fraction; Jinyoung adjusts himself, grabs them to hold him still as he takes his cock into his mouth, that sweet smoky scent filling Jinyoung's nose. Jaebum sighs Jinyoung's name, has his lip caught between his teeth when Jinyoung glances up, his eyes shut and eyebrows twitching with every flick of Jinyoung's tongue, mouth falling open on another gasp when Jinyoung sucks lightly and pulls up and sinks back down. He finds a rhythm, rising and falling steadily as Jaebum's hands twitch like he wants to grab Jinyoung's hair but settle for clenching around handfuls of the sheets and Jinyoung curls his tongue, sucks hard on his way up and Jaebum's mouth falls open, eyelids fluttering as his hips try to push up off the bed but Jinyoung's grip is iron keeping them down, swallows his cock back down a little deeper, stomach twisting at the little noise that escapes his throat. Bobbing his head steadily, Jinyoung runs his tongue firmly along the vein pulsing on the underside and Jaebum's thighs tense when Jinyoung swallows around his cock and digs his nails slightly into his hips, bruised lips parting on a high moan and his breath coming faster and faster.

"Jinyoungie, Jinyoungie, fuck-" he gasps, moaning again when Jinyoung hums and shifts up a little, hand working what's not in his mouth- "I'm- fuck I'm gonna come, Jinyoung-" and he does exactly that when Jinyoung moans encouragingly around him, his free hand sliding down press a thumb over his asshole; another strangled whine of Jinyoung's name escapes his bitten-red lips, hands clawing at the sheets with his hips bucking up slightly but Jinyoung was pretty much expecting that, pulls off slightly so he's just fucking into his mouth rather than his throat, breathing through his nose as cum coats his tongue, salty but not too unpleasant. His head falls back against the pillow as he pants and squirms under Jinyoung, little soft noises escaping his lips with every tiny movement of Jinyoung's tongue.

Once he's done shaking through the aftershocks, Jinyoung pulls off with a pop and sits up, wipes his mouth on his arm as he swallows (it takes him a couple of tries, it's obviously been a while since he's done this) and snorts as Jaebum pushes himself up with a grumble and throws his arms around Jinyoung's neck to pull him into a kiss. He then lets himself fall backwards back onto the bed, dragging Jinyoung down with him; he has to catch himself on his hands to avoid head-butting Jaebum in the nose but the idiot just grins up at him, tugs him down into another kiss and combs gentle fingers through Jinyoung's hair. It's almost _tender_ and it has Jinyoung's heart kicking into fifth gear and his stomach roiling with what feels like a meadow's worth of butterflies and he struggles to keep that off his face when the chaste kiss naturally comes to a stop and Jaebum looks up at him, black eyes soft and a little sleepy as he studies Jinyoung's face.

"What?" Jinyoung mumbles, flushing deep red but Jaebum just shakes his head, eyes curving into crescents with his broad smile.

"Don't worry about it." He murmurs, leaning up to press another kiss to Jinyoung's lips then pulling Jinyoung down so he's lying fully on his chest and hugging him tightly, nose buried in his hair. Jinyoung takes a moment to compose himself and hopefully will some of his blush down but in that few seconds Jaebum's apparently already started to fall asleep. It doesn't make it any easier for Jinyoung to extricate himself though; his arms just tighten around Jinyoung's shoulders. "What are you doing?" He grumbles into Jinyoung's hair.

"I need to clean up and I have things to do." Jinyoung says exasperatedly, rolling his eyes at Jaebum's dramatic groan but standing up when he reluctantly lets go.

"Are you kicking me out already?" He asks with a pout, leaning up on his elbow, but there's an odd thinness to his voice, some little guarded thing in his eyes when Jinyoung blinks over at him from next to his desk where he's wiping his stomach clean.

"No, I just have things to do. You can stay if you want." Jinyoung answers, feeling like he's missing something but that defensiveness vanishes and Jaebum's smile is back full force as he nods slightly and settles more comfortably back on the bed. Smiling back weakly, Jinyoung retrieves his sweatpants and pulls them back on, grabs his top from the floor. "I'll be right back, I just need to grab my laptop." Jaebum nods again, watches him as he grabs his keys, unlocks the door and slips outside; he lets out a sigh as he jogs down the stairs, shoving his keys in his pocket and pulling the top over his head, tugging the sleeves down his wrists.

Yoongi's in the living room when Jinyoung reaches it, is holding a bowl of noodles with his headphones on and blasting something, clearly on his way back to his room but he pauses when he sees Jinyoung. His stare bores into Jinyoung's face as he mumbles a vague greeting, eyes far too keenly knowing for comfort so Jinyoung just grabs his laptop and phone and practically sprints back up the stairs, shoulders his door open with another sigh, this time of relief. He trudges over to his desk and dumps his stuff on it, pulls his laptop open and sits down, is about to type in his password when Jaebum speaks up again.

"Can't you come do that over here?" He wheedles, shuffling over to make room for him and making grabby hands at him again. Jinyoung heaves a sigh and eyes him suspiciously but stands back up, brings his laptop with him and plops down next to him, settles his laptop on his lap as Jaebum's arms wind around his waist and he nuzzles against Jinyoung's hip, throws one leg over Jinyoung's. "Isn't this better?" He murmurs smugly, snickering when Jinyoung flicks his forehead and humming contentedly when Jinyoung relents with a grumble and can't resist stroking through his hair, heart thumping an affectionate tattoo against his ribcage as he awkwardly types his password in one-handed (the things he does for Jaebum). They sit, or lie in Jaebum's case, in a surprisingly comfortable silence as Jinyoung opens and closes tabs and documents until he finds his dissertation plan and notes, starts pulling bits around and figuring out what order to write stuff. One of them catches his eye and he glances down at Jaebum, who has his eyes closed and his face pushed against Jinyoung's thigh, breathing slowly as though trying to sleep.

"Has the murdering stopped in Arisk?" He asks, only slightly hesitantly. Jaebum's eyes blink open and he peers at Jinyoung uncomprehendingly for a moment before it twigs and he nods, snuggles a little closer.

"Yeah, it usually only lasts a couple of days. The new king's in place and the court's been overhauled, so most of the killing has stopped." He murmurs, voice deep and a little hoarse; Jinyoung nods, trying to ignore how hot he sounds so he can focus on his work and actually get something done. 

"Well, that's good." Jinyoung says lamely and Jaebum hums an affirmative, smirking against his thigh as his arms tighten just a fraction around his waist.

"Yep," he says, popping the p, "and this king's less unpleasant than Lerissa, so that's always a bonus." Jinyoung snorts.

"Any better in bed?" He asks, trying not to sound as disgruntled about that as he feels. Jaebum cracks an eye open, iris inky black and stare calculating.

"I wouldn't know," he murmurs, smirking when Jinyoung blinks down at him, "I haven't fucked him." Both eyes blink open and he shifts to look up at Jinyoung properly, a slow smile spreading over his face as his eyes run down Jinyoung's chest and back up to meet his confused gaze. "Why would I bother with him when I can get everything I could possibly want from you?" His fingers twitch on Jinyoung's stomach, curling slightly as he settles back down on his side, closes his eyes with the smug smile still on his face. Jinyoung's reeling somewhat, fingers falling still on his keyboard as a fresh wave of somewhat hopeful butterflies start making a mess of his stomach; is he saying he's not fucking anyone else? Like exclusively fucking Jinyoung? Why would he do that? Surely he means something else. He must do, right? He's a fucking succubus for goodness' sake, he's literally told Jinyoung they don't do monogamy. Even if he'd then said he wouldn't be averse to it. What the hell is happening right now?

"That was cheesy." Jinyoung eventually mumbles, hoping his face isn't as bright a red as it feels. Jaebum rumbles a laugh and shifts a little closer, grinning against Jinyoung's thigh but he doesn't respond beyond that much to Jinyoung's continued bafflement. Honestly, why do boys, even fucking demon boys, have to be so goddamn confusing?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading!! I'm sorry it took me so long to get this out but ive been in and out of the doctor all week and felt like actual death rip  
> let me know what u thought in the comments or on [my tumblr](http://jbibbles.tumblr.com/) or just come chat to me on tumblr!! I like talking!! we can talk about how good 7 for 7 is ~~and also about the fucking line of the century 'I can do anything if u call me good boy' I see u im jaebum I s e e y o u~~  
>  anyway thanks again!! I love all u guys!!


	6. New developments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again I didn't really listen to anything specifically while writing this so enjoy this recommendation from my general jams: [shawn wasabi's remix of pusher - clear](https://youtu.be/1b0Peus4HfU)

Jinyoung's actually going to die today, he can feel it. Not only is he running hellishly late for his progress meeting with Professor Kim, he's also late for a really terrible reason; first of all that he overslept, missing all three of his alarms thanks to his phone being downstairs having not retrieved it after inviting Jaebum over (that's a very mundane way of thinking about opening a gate to another plane and inviting a demon through) the night before. He'd been meaning to, had planned to get it once they'd finished but he'd accidentally fallen straight asleep, plus he'd probably have fallen down the stairs with how jelly-like his legs had felt by the end of it, Jaebum having fucked him hard enough that he'd been limping slightly while scrambling to get his shit together earlier. Which leads him the second reason he's so late: he'd had to get Jaebum back home. That's one thing he does miss about summoning him, the fact that he could just tell Jaebum to go and he could just do that, whereas nowadays he has to go through the rigmarole of opening the gate back up again and closing it afterwards. Still, he thinks to himself as he jogs the last few steps to Kim's door, it could be worse, Kim could _know_ the reason he's so late. Then he really would be in trouble.

"Come in!" Kim calls when Jinyoung knocks, far too brightly for half nine in the morning. Jinyoung pushes the door open, mumbling a greeting and an apology when she smiles at him and waves him inside. "It's alright, I was a bit late this morning myself, traffic was terrible." Thank goodness for that. Jinyoung plops into the chair by her desk, trying not to look like he just sprinted the length of the campus but he suspects he looks more than slightly winded, his face bright red and fringe sticking to his sweaty forehead, but thankfully she doesn't mention it. "So, I understand you've completed your primary research?" She asks, a proud smile on her face when Jinyoung coughs and nods.

"Yes, I have." She nods too, pulls his folder from the shelf of them and leafs through it.

"Well you're definitely the first of my students to do so," she says, pushing her glasses higher up her nose, "and one of the first in the year I should think." She sounds somewhat despairing at that and Jinyoung snorts; not massively surprising, they may be third years but most of them haven't quite found the mind-set for that just yet. He's only finished so quickly because he's had a pretty good (sure, just _pretty good_ ) incentive to keep doing his research. 

"Well, I didn't want to leave it to the last minute." Jinyoung utterly pulls that out of his ass but she nods approvingly, grabs a pen to tick down a checklist in his folder.

"That's a good attitude to have, it'll serve you well during your masters' project next year." Well he'd better get working on finding that attitude then; this is simultaneously hilarious and incredibly awkward. "In that case, there's not much else I can say, except keep up what you're doing and let me know if you need any help with what to do next." She says with a broad smile and Jinyoung nods, smiles tightly back, absolutely not intensely irritated that he ran the whole goddamn way here for a pointless meeting. But he keeps that off his face, thanks Kim and leaves her office, groaning loudly when he reaches the stairwell and clomps his way down the stairs.

He checks his watch and groans again; it's an hour and a half until his first lecture of the day and now he has to find something to do. Trudging past the labs, he spies a couple of his course-mates setting something on fire from across the room and mentally starts preparing himself for the inevitable fire alarm. Probably best to avoid that for now; he heads down to the foyer and makes a beeline for the comfy chairs set up to one side, flops into one with a sigh and pulls his phone out. 

Only to almost drop it immediately at the excited shout of his name from the entrance; startled, he looks up to see Youngjae waving frantically at him as he approaches to sit heavily on the seat across from him.

"Hey Jinyoung! Haven't seen you in a while." He says with a grin and Jinyoung can't help smiling back, stashes his phone back into his pocket.

"I've been busy," Jinyoung says sheepishly, "how have you been? How are you finding second year?" Youngjae groans, slides down the chair.

"It's so much more than first year," he whines, wriggling unhappily, "I'm so behind already." Jinyoung nods sympathetically, he remembers his transition into second year; it was rough. Not that the leap between second and third is any better but there's no need to scare Youngjae unnecessarily. "How about you?" He asks as he pushes himself back up, crosses his legs on the chair. Jinyoung shrugs and hums noncommittally.

"I'm doing alright. Just writing up my summoning dissertation at the moment." He answers, though it is a bit of an exaggeration; he could be writing it up, he's just done next to nothing for it. Youngjae looks impressed though, nodding at him as he digs his phone out of his pocket.

"That's great, you have ages to get it done then!" He says, enthusiastic if distracted as he types out a response to whatever it is he's looking at. Jinyoung just hums again; good thing he does, the rate he's working at. 

"What do you have today?" Jinyoung asks, hoping to distract from the lack of actual work he's been doing. Youngjae heaves a sigh, shakes his head despairingly at Jinyoung.

"Four lectures, ten ‘til three." Jinyoung winces sympathetically.

"That's rough." Youngjae groans an affirmative, goes back to his phone for a moment.

"Sorry, Mark's sending me memes." Jinyoung snorts; of course he is. They sit in silence for a while as Youngjae responds to his memes, Jinyoung tapping through notifications on his own phone, but then Youngjae sneaks what he clearly thinks is a surreptitious look over at Jinyoung with a nervous expression then looks back at his phone chewing on his lip; Jinyoung doesn't say anything despite his burning curiosity, waits for Youngjae to say something. Which he doesn't, for quite a while, but eventually he sighs, rubbing his forehead. "Jinyoung can I ask you something?" He says tentatively. Jinyoung puts his phone down with a nod, a worried frown creasing his forehead.

"What is it?" He prompts when Youngjae goes back to worrying at his lip, fidgeting with his fingers in his lap.

"It's- well it's about Jackson." He eventually mumbles. 

"What's he done now?" Jinyoung groans, trying to lighten the mood somewhat but Youngjae balks, shaking his head with wide eyes.

"No, he- he hasn't done anything!" He splutters. "It's nothing bad! Just- me and Mark well, we were wondering- we've been thinking that, um..." he tails off, looks a little frustrated and also kind of scared and a lightbulb flicks on in Jinyoung's head; he perks up, eyes wide, waits for Youngjae to come out with it but he seems tongue-tied.

"Wondering what?" He urges, the beginnings of a delighted smile curving his lips up because fucking _finally_. Youngjae turns pink and keeps his eyes on his hands.

"Wondering- well we, we really-" he groans, scrubs his face with both palms- "he's really nice, you know? We- we like him a lot and-" Jinyoung very nearly punches the air.

"Yes you should definitely ask him out." Jinyoung blurts eagerly and it surprises Youngjae into looking up at him, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. "In fact please, _please_ ask him out, I'm so tired of his pining." Youngjae blinks like a rabbit in headlights for a long moment.

"What?" He squeaks. Jinyoung groans, flops against his seat.

"Come on, you know he likes you both, right?" He asks incredulously but Youngjae still looks floored.

"You don't- you don't think this is odd?" He asks sheepishly and Jinyoung almost laughs but for one they don't know about his own somewhat unconventional arrangements and for another he looks genuinely worried, so he just shakes his head as he sits back up, smiling kindly.

"Of course not, if it'll make the three of you happy, I think you should go for it." He says and Youngjae's face lights up and he nods, looks down at his phone with a grin.

"Okay." He mumbles, looking possibly the happiest Jinyoung's ever seen him, then he jumps to his feet with a squawk when he unlocks his phone. "Oh no, I'm late! Sorry Jinyoung, thank you so much!" He yells over his shoulder, almost falling down the steps out of the building. Jinyoung just shakes his head but internally he's having a little bit of a dance party because really, it's about fucking time.

Jinyoung slips into the seat next to Jisoo, trying not to look as groggy as he feels; he'd fallen asleep after Youngjae had left and had woken up three minutes before his lecture was about to start so he'd had to sprint across to this building while still half asleep. It was only next door to the magical studies building thankfully but still, not ideal. Jisoo wrinkles her nose at him and pushes her pencil case aside to let him dump his notebook onto the bench in front of him.

"Rough night?" She whispers and Jinyoung very nearly snorts aloud; oh, if only she knew (his inadvertent nap has brought his backache back again). Instead, he just sneers at her, which she returns along with a jab in his side with her pencil. 

"Good morning everybody, I hope everyone's ready to begin," Professor Song says with his trademarked eye-roll, "you'll need to be alert today, we're covering some complex theories on elemental control." He clicks through his presentation and starts to drone. Jinyoung honestly tries to pay attention, manages pretty well for the first half an hour, making notes where necessary and highlighting along on the printouts of the slides, but there's only so much he can take and his attention starts to wander, then disappear completely as he struggles not to fall asleep again. Jisoo's not faring much better, is alternating between nodding off herself, texting Jennie and scrambling to highlight over all the slides every time she notices she's missed like four of them. So a fairly standard lecture then.

"Wow that was boring." Jisoo groans as they leave the lecture theatre. Jinyoung yawns an affirmative, stretching out his back as best he can with his messenger bag slung over his shoulder. She yawns too, covering her mouth with her hand. 

"I'm going to buy some food before I die, you want to come?" Jinyoung asks as his stomach rumbles painfully (if only he'd had time for breakfast) and Jisoo nods enthusiastically, falls into step beside him as they head for the nearest café. 

"So, how are things? Seems like all we talk about any more is work." Jisoo asks when they're suitably loaded with food and scooting into a miraculously free booth. Shrugging, Jinyoung rips open his sandwich.

"Things are things. They keep happening." Jisoo rolls her eyes and he snorts, waving away her irritation. "I'm just busy at the moment, you should know, we do mostly the same modules. I don't have time for anything else." She narrows her eyes, takes a sip from her smoothie.

"Jennie says you're being reclusive. You sure everything's okay?" She asks suspiciously and Jinyoung rolls his eyes this time to cover up the anxiety churning his stomach.

"I've always been reclusive, she just forgets that." Which is entirely true, to be fair, he may just be taking it a little further than usual at the moment. Jisoo hums, a strange expression on her face but Jinyoung can't quite place it.

"It's true, you've always been prickly." Well that smarts a little bit but he also can't argue with her, so settles for glaring at her and taking a pointed bite of his sandwich. "Really though, if there's something wrong, you can talk to me you know?" She says seriously, smiling slightly when Jinyoung looks up from his sandwich and another blip of guilt about lying to everyone pulses through him. He swallows hard and nods, smiling weakly and thankfully she seems convinced, content to leave it and start picking over her own sandwich.

Thankfully Jinyoung's last two lectures are on simple things with less boring lecturers, so he's actually semi-awake as he starts walking home, Jisoo in step next to him as she's spending the afternoon with Jennie. He's also thankful that she doesn't bring up him being off at the moment again, their conversation keeping to less dangerous avenues like the upcoming party this weekend at one of Yoongi's friend's places and how awful Tinctures and Tonics is. 

It seems like only minutes before they're outside Jinyoung's house and he's barely touched his key to the lock when his front door is yanked open and he's face to face with a stone-faced Yoongi, Jisoo jumping at the sudden movement next to him.

"Uh, hi?" He says when he doesn't speak immediately, just nods at Jisoo then looks Jinyoung up and down with an unimpressed quirk to his mouth.

"We're having a house meeting." Is all he says before turning on his heel and leaving Jinyoung frozen and very confused on the doorstep with an apparently baffled Jisoo next to him. Apprehension setting his heart pounding, Jinyoung slowly steps inside, sharing a very confused glance with Jisoo as she shuts the door with a click and they make their way to the sitting room. Yoongi's sat next to Momo on the sofa, but Jennie's turned the armchair around to face the hallway, is sat with one leg crossed over the other and her hands steepled in front of her like some kind of Bond villain.

"What's going on?" Jinyoung asks dubiously. Jennie just purses her lips, jerks her head at the sofa. Her dramatic flair is ruined somewhat when Jinyoung walks past her to sit down at the free end of the sofa under the stares of both Yoongi and Momo as she has to get up and spin the chair around so she can actually face them, plus her face lights up when she sees Jisoo and she bounds over to kiss her, but the initial entrance was very intimidating. 

She plops back down in the chair as Jisoo hovers awkwardly by the stairs, leans forward with her hands on her knees to frown at Jinyoung, but no one says anything. 

"Seriously, why are you all being so weird?" Jinyoung insists, shrinking back against the arm of the sofa when Yoongi's stare turns even more calculating and Momo fidgets and looks away.

"Everything alright with you, Jinyoung?" Jennie asks but there's no concern to her voice, just a flat demand. Jinyoung smiles tightly, eyes slightly wide.

"Yes?" He ends up phrasing it as a question and Jennie hums sceptically.

"Nothing new going on with you? Nothing you'd like to share with your housemates?" Oh this is going somewhere very bad.

"No?" Another question and it's very high-pitched, almost a squeak. Jennie smiles sweetly and it's more than slightly terrifying.

"Then who've you been fucking, Jinyoung?" Jennie says and all of the blood drains from Jinyoung's head to pool in his feet, "Because none of us have ever seen them arrive or leave and, well, your headboard smacking into the wall and waking me up at two in the morning always magically-" she waves a hand dramatically (the irony of the phrasing is not lost on Jinyoung)- "coincides with your laptop and phone being down here-" she smacks the table hard; the bang makes Jinyoung and Momo jump nearly out of their skins, but Yoongi terrifyingly doesn't flinch, just watches Jinyoung with slightly narrowed eyes- "during summoning time." She narrows her eyes, studying every tiny movement of Jinyoung's face.

"Um." Jinyoung says, cleverly, heart thumping in his throat. Jennie leans over the table, nose stopping about an inch from Jinyoung's.

"Who are you fucking, Jinyoung?" She repeats very quietly. Jinyoung gulps, going a little cross-eyed looking at her.

"No one?" He squeaks. Jennie just raises an eyebrow. There's an odd choked noise from either Momo or Yoongi (probably Momo) but Jinyoung doesn't dare look over to see who it was. "It's complicated?" He tries but Jennie looks anything but impressed, stands up straight and pulls her phone out, taps something in and turns it around to show the phone extension for the magical studies department and panic just kicks in. "Please don't tell the uni I'm fucking a demon." It falls out in a rush and he cringes but Jennie just chucks her phone onto the chair and punches the air, points a triumphant finger at Yoongi, who looks actually shocked.

"I told you I could get him to fess up in less than five minutes! You fucking doubted me, Yoongi!" Momo falls off the sofa and there's a thump of Jisoo collapsing to the floor, both in paroxysms of laughter, as Yoongi looks over at Jennie with a profoundly impressed and respectful look on his face, obligingly raises a hand for her to high-five it. Jinyoung throws a cushion at her.

"Are you fucking kidding me?!" He yelps, heartbeat pounding at a hundred miles an hour at the base of his head; the pillow bounces off her face but she just throws finger guns at him before promptly joining Momo on the floor. Jisoo crawls into his slightly blurry vision, also cackling as she grabs Jennie's hand and pulls her into her side, hugging her around the waist and burying her face into her shoulder.

"I can't believe you fell for that! What did you think I was going to do? You know I can't even phone the doctors' surgery!" She screeches, wiping tears from her face and patting Jisoo's arms. Jinyoung grabs another cushion and yells wordlessly into it. 

"I hate you so much! I'm fucking moving out!" He's shouting still but he can't help laughing too, slightly hysterical with relief. Someone leaps onto the sofa and then onto him, squeezing all the air from his lungs.

"Don't move out, Jinyoung!" Momo laughs into his shoulder as Jennie slaps him on the back.

"Yeah you know you love us Jinyoung-" she's still cackling- "plus where the hell else will you find roommates who are cool with you having a demon for a boyfriend? And yes we know it's illegal, Jisoo checked and Yoongi's not an idiot, he remembers your little conversation." Jinyoung throws his cushion at her again then pats Momo comfortingly on the back, grumbling to himself because Jennie may have a good point there. Also the word boyfriend is doing strange things to his insides but he's going to choose to ignore that for now. "Though like, you did lie to us for ages so I do think a punishment is in order." She's nodding sagely, Jisoo snickering next to her (the traitor) and unfortunately Yoongi's eyes have a very sadistic light to them right now, so it doesn't look like he's getting out of this one.

"What do you want?" He asks begrudgingly. She grins. It's a very evil grin.

"I want you to introduce us to your demon boyfriend."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been so hype for this chapter and also for the next one bc I think they're really funny rip  
> thanks for reading!! I'm also recovering from my tonsillitis finally lmao so that's good  
> hmu here or on [tumblr](http://jbibbles.tumblr.com/) with thoughts and stuff!!


	7. Even more developments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song for this chapter is [Jane XO - Love Me](https://youtu.be/bLcNbXTAuAg) but I shall say no more here

Jinyoung shuts his bedroom door and slumps against it, slides down to sit at the base of it and bury his face in his hands. Talk about the most stressful moment of his life; his university interviews have nothing on that. Still, that was probably the best possible outcome, even if the next little while will be nothing short of fucking excruciating and there is no way in hell he's getting out of it; while Jennie and the rest may not be about to report him to the university or the police or anything, he does live with them and they do have access to his food and possessions and he's not really sure he wants to know what a vengeful Yoongi who's been brainstorming with Jennie can do with that access.

He lets himself sit and wallow in self-pity for a few moments before hauling himself to his feet and trudging over to his desk, rummaging through his summoning kit and papers for the gate design; it had taken enough convincing to be able to bring Jaebum here without an audience, he doesn't want to tempt fate by taking too long to do that lest Jennie come up to see what's causing the hold-up. Plus she has his phone and laptop hostage and he doesn't want to give her an excuse to not give them back, he kind of needs them for things like his dissertation which is probably once again going on the backburner for this evening. So much for that good attitude.

Already familiar with the design, it's only a minute or so before he's speaking through the script and the gate flares open, energy crackling through the room and sparking between strands of Jinyoung's hair. The three minute or so wait before it sparks again seems to drag on for about an hour but then Jaebum's perched on his bed, legs crossed and an amused smile on his face.

"I thought you said you wouldn't have time to call me again today." He says, head cocking when Jinyoung shoots him a glare but he doesn't say anything else until Jinyoung's finished the closing script and has brushed most of the chalk from his wall (maybe he should invest in a chalkboard). "Everything alright?" He asks a little dubiously as Jinyoung slumps against his desk, rubbing his eyes. A mistake; he puts chalk dust in them and ends up swearing to himself and almost crying, but when he can see again he looks over at Jaebum, who's staring at him slightly apprehensively.

"I, uh, may be in something of a situation." He admits reluctantly and Jaebum peers at him, looks slightly wary but there's also amusement creeping onto his face. Jinyoung heaves a sigh and rubs his forehead, wondering if he has any painkillers anywhere because he has the worst stress headache coming on. "My, um, my housemates, they... They may have figured this out." He gestures vaguely between the pair of them; one of Jaebum's eyebrows quirks up but that's his only apparent reaction. Jinyoung sighs again. "They, well, they know what we've been doing. And in order to appease them-" he glowers at the door- "they- they want to meet you." It feels a bit anticlimactic to just come out with it but it's somewhat worth it to see Jaebum's mouth fall open as he stares at Jinyoung in utter confusion.

"You're fucking with me, right?" He asks, completely seriously. Oh boy does Jinyoung wish he was; he shakes his head, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

"No, they actually want to meet you," Jinyoung repeats, pinching the bridge of his nose, "they just want to make fun of me." The latter part is mumbled, hopefully too quietly to be heard but alas, his luck is just not there today; there's a beat of silence then an almighty snort and Jaebum flops onto his back, cackling. Jinyoung rubs the heels of his hands over his eyes; why must this be his life? What has he done to deserve this? Besides the whole sneaking around to fuck a demon thing.

It's a good few minutes before Jaebum can speak again, ends up wiping tears from his eyes as he sits up, has to look away from Jinyoung a couple of times because it sends him snickering again. Jinyoung just waits with his arms folded, resists the urge to start tapping his foot impatiently.

"I thought you said this-" he flaps a hand vaguely between them and over at the wall- "was illegal." Jinyoung shrugs.

"They don't really care, they still want to meet you." Staggering, he knows, but Jaebum takes that in stride, hops to his feet, almost bouncing in place.

"Well, I don't want to keep them waiting then." He says with a broad smile, clearly incredibly excited; Jinyoung's less so, steps between him and the door when he goes to move towards it. It works in that he stops, but he does stop as close to Jinyoung as he can without touching him and his amused smirk so close to Jinyoung's face is not doing wonders for his ability to concentrate.

"Just, don't freak them out, okay? Please." Jinyoung mumbles, keeping his eyes steadfastly past over Jaebum's shoulder; he just moves into his eye-line though, blinking innocently at him, looks almost offended at the suggestion. "I mean it, don't do anything weird." Just a shake of his head, still looking innocent; Jinyoung pinches the bridge of his nose. "And don't flirt with them, okay? Jennie and Jisoo are dating anyway but just- don't. Alright?" He asks, more like pleads but Jaebum just shrugs with a wicked grin, loose shirt almost falling off his shoulder and Jinyoung balks when he notices. "Okay, no, hang on-" he almost runs to his desk, grabs the oversized grey hoodie he likes to wear while studying and thrusts it at Jaebum- "put this on." He grabs it automatically, looks down at it like he doesn't know what to do with it.

"What's wrong with what I'm wearing now?" He asks, sounds almost wounded but his eyes are glittering with mirth when he looks up at Jinyoung with a pout. Jinyoung eyes his floaty shirt and skin-tight jeans distrustfully.

"Nothing, I just don't trust you to keep it all on if you think it'll embarrass me." Jinyoung says flatly and he has to look away, lips pressed together to hide a laugh but he does as he's told, shrugs Jinyoung's hoodie on and zips it up, cuddling into it a little with a slight look of surprise.

"Oh, this is actually really nice." He sounds very shocked by this fact (it is a very comfy jumper). Jinyoung just hums noncommittally, scrambling to collect his thoughts back together because Jaebum looks really good in his clothes, more so than he'd naturally expected what with him being incredibly hot and all; it fits him better than it does Jinyoung, what with his shoulders actually filling it out, but it still looks big and cosy, reaching down almost mid-thigh and it just makes Jinyoung want to hug him (damn it mushy feelings, not right now). "You okay there?" Jaebum asks amusedly and Jinyoung snaps himself out of it, resolving to think about Jaebum looking adorable in his clothes once his imminent doom is out of the way.

"Yes," he says briskly, "just, please try and behave." He gets only a hum as he heads for the door, doesn't look back to check if Jaebum's following but he's painfully conscious of his footsteps following him down the stairs and his heart feels like it's about to beat its way through his ribcage but he forces himself to walk down the two flights slowly and calmly, steps into the living room and eyes the scene: Everyone's sprawled over assorted surfaces, Jennie back on her armchair with Jisoo sat in front of her with her head on her knees, Momo sat cross-legged on the sofa and Yoongi sat up on the back with a bowl of popcorn in his lap (of course). They all fall deathly silent when they see Jinyoung, all of them sitting up straight and staring at him raptly; with a silent sigh, he steps aside out of the staircase, half-heartedly raises a hand in a 'ta-da' gesture as Jaebum steps into the living room, not daring to look any of them in the face.

"Hi." Jaebum says amiably, seems unbothered by the unwavering stares of four people being trained on him but then he does seem to thrive on attention. Jinyoung risks a glance at each of them; Yoongi's face is unreadable as usual, but Momo's eyes are wide and she's blushing slightly, throat bobbing on a gulp. Jaebum zeroes in on this immediately, throws her a broad smile and a wink and it makes her blush even deeper; Jinyoung forces down his irritation and pointedly looks away from her, over to Jennie and Jisoo. Jennie's very overtly checking Jaebum out with her lips pursed and eyes narrowed, seems to be on the fence about what she thinks but Jisoo looks anything but impressed.

"So you're the demon boyfriend?" Jennie says and oh fuck he forgot to mention that that's how they've been referring to him but thankfully Jaebum doesn't really react to it, just inclines his head and lets his eyes flash orange; all of them, even Yoongi, blink at that. "Damn, you're- really a demon, huh." She sounds almost surprised and it makes Jaebum look even more amused.

"What the hell else were you expecting?" Jinyoung snaps tersely and Jennie puffs herself up, hands on her hips, clearly about to snap back but Jisoo speaks before she can.

"Listen, no offense, uh, demon boyfriend-" Jaebum doesn't seem offended, looks like he's having the time of his life in fact- "but Jinyoung I just... I just can't see it, I really can't." Jennie blinks down at her, clearly confused. "I mean, I guess he's hot but like... Worth breaking the law for?" She presses her lips together, making a dubious noise as she looks at Jinyoung in bafflement and Jennie snorts.

"I mean, maybe you wouldn't, you big lesbian-" Jisoo rolls her eyes, smacks her leg affectionately- "but-" Jennie stops, stares with her mouth open as Jaebum, whose eyes have been narrowed at Jisoo contemplatively since she spoke, grins at Jennie's words and his form shivers, blurring enough that Jinyoung has to look away, jaw locking because of course, of course he's doing this, attention-seeking idiot that he is. Jisoo's mouth falls open too when he comes back into focus, eyes popping wide.

"Okay, well, now I see it." She squeaks and Jaebum grins, flicking his (her? Their? Gender is confusing enough, let alone when shape-shifting is thrown into the mix) now long black hair out of his now very much typically female face. He looks a little bit like Jennie actually but taller, features a bit harsher than hers with a sharper jawline and broader shoulders but Jinyoung's hoodie is still hanging loosely off them where he'd been easily filling it before. Jennie looks him over with newly appraising eyes too, looks over at Jinyoung with an incredulous expression. Momo and Yoongi are both slack-jawed too (he's actually a little proud that Jaebum surprised Yoongi) but then they don't do magical subjects so this is probably sort of weird to them.

"Stop it." Jinyoung hisses, an ugly green annoyance bubbling in his chest and Jaebum looks over at him with a pout pushing out full red-painted lips, blinks wide green eyes at him; he groans when Jinyoung just pointedly raises an eyebrow and reluctantly he blurs again, is back to his regular form a moment later, arms folded sulkily. Jisoo shakes her head as if to clear it and Jennie nods, still surprised but now more appreciative.

"That's certainly a way to keep things fresh." She says, sounds almost impressed and both Jaebum and Yoongi snort at the same time. Jinyoung pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Um, sorry, I just- what's your name?" Momo pipes up tentatively, blushing bright pink again when Jaebum smiles at her.

"I'm Jaebum, it's lovely to meet you." He says with another wink and she giggles shyly, looks down at her feet. Jinyoung forces himself not to glare at her because it's not her fault Jaebum's attractive and a relentless fucking flirt, she's reacting understandably and he's not going to be pissed at her for that, no matter what the twisting in his chest might suggest. Jaebum, on the other hand, has no excuse, Jinyoung literally fucking asked him not to do that-

"That's a remarkably normal name for a demon." Jennie's musing cuts off Jinyoung's internal ranting, head cocked as she looks Jaebum over again; he practically preens under her gaze, seems to be having a great time being the centre of attention.

"You can call me something more demonic if you like." He throws her a rakish grin and she laughs, grinning back; Jisoo rolls her eyes, pokes Jennie's calf and shakes her head mock-disapprovingly when she glances down. Irritation growing ever larger, Jinyoung folds his arms, is about to interject when Yoongi speaks up for the first time.

"Are you hurting Jinyoung?" He asks coolly; Jaebum barely hesitates before grinning.

"Only if he asks me to." He says with a wink and Jennie snorts again but Yoongi doesn't seem amused, just raises one eyebrow, expression stony.

"Chill out, Yoongi, I'm fine," Jinyoung says briskly, "what kind of idiot do you take me for? I know what I'm doing." Yoongi's other eyebrow comes up but he lets it go, eyes Jaebum critically again. He doesn't seem to register the slight disapproval in the stare though (all attention is good attention, right?), just steps a little closer to Jinyoung and holds a hand out. Jinyoung stares at it blankly for a moment, can't figure out what he's after for a moment but he makes a grabby motion a couple of times and it clicks; Jinyoung takes his hand with a small sigh and a slight flush, glaring daggers at Jisoo and Momo who both start cooing.

"I guess you guys are kind of cute together," Jennie drawls, "despite the whole illegal demon thing you've got going on but you know, who am I to judge? Probably makes the sex better." She stands up, waving a hand at Jisoo's squawk as her head gets knocked by her knee and stretches her arms over her head. Jinyoung shuts his eyes, forces himself to take a deep breath and not push her over as she scoots past him and up the stairs. "Nice meeting you, demon boyfriend." She calls over her shoulder, Jisoo patting Jinyoung on the shoulder with a reassuring smile on her way past after her.

"Oh wait, we haven't told you our names!" Momo exclaims, looking over at Jaebum guiltily but he doesn't notice, is busy staring at Jinyoung with a slight smile and swinging their linked hands together a little when Jinyoung glances over at him, but he pays attention to her when he jerks his head at her pointedly.

"Sorry, what was that?" He says with an (overly) apologetic smile; she swoons slightly but recovers quickly, looks down at her lap with her cheeks pink again as she attempts to stutter out some sort of answer. Jinyoung forces himself not to react beyond squeezing Jaebum's hand slightly; he still gets a knowing glance sent his way, but Momo couldn't tell at least.

"Our names," Yoongi repeats for her, slowly getting to his feet himself and stepping down off the sofa, "I'm Yoongi, she's Momo-" he ruffles Momo's hair; it's a testament to how flustered she is when she doesn't even protest, just nervously smoothes it back down- "and those two were Jennie and Jisoo." He gestures vaguely at the stairs. Jaebum hums, head cocked slightly.

"Which was which?" He asks and Jinyoung almost jumps out of his skin at a pointed snort right behind him; Jisoo scoots past him to grab her bag from against the sofa.

"I'm Jisoo-" she wiggles her fingers at Jaebum on her way back past- "it's nice to meet you, Jaebum." She throws a sweet smile over her shoulder and takes the stairs two at a time on her way up.

"Yeah it's been an experience." Yoongi says dryly, stepping over to them and offering his hand to Jaebum to shake; he hesitates only slightly but mirrors him and thankfully Yoongi takes the initiative and grabs it, shakes it quickly then steps back with a nod, plugging his earphones back in on his way back to his room. Momo smiles sheepishly at them.

"I hope things work out well for you two." She says earnestly, hopping to her feet and all but running into the kitchen; Jinyoung can't help smiling as he mumbles his thanks, even despite his lingering irritability over her (understandable) reactions to Jaebum's flirting.

"Well they seem nice," Jaebum says, grinning at Jinyoung when he glares at him, "ow, hey, don't rip my arm off!" He yelps when Jinyoung turns on his heel and drags him up the stairs, flipping off Jennie's wolf-whistles through her open door and shoving Jaebum into his room.

"So much for behaving, huh? I asked you not to flirt with my housemates!" Jinyoung snaps once he's shut (slammed) his bedroom door and locked it, fists clenching at his sides.

"Are you jealous, Jinyoungie? You know that's just how I talk to people." He teases as he flops onto Jinyoung's bed and Jinyoung locks his jaw because yes, he might be a bit and he's feeling very conflicted about it because as much as he might want him to be, Jaebum isn't his boyfriend so he really doesn't appreciate being made fun of right now.

"Don't flirt with my housemates, they're-" he pauses, struggling for a better word but none come to him so he blasts right through with it- "they're off-limits. Do not try and fuck my housemates." Chin propped on his hand as he looks over at Jinyoung, Jaebum seems incredibly amused and it's really not helping Jinyoung be less irritable.

"I don't want to fuck your housemates, sweetheart." He laughs and Jinyoung deflates a little.

"Well, good." He says lamely, flushing when Jaebum's grin widens. Slowly he sits back up, pushes himself back to his feet.

"Do you know why I don't want to?" He asks, seems to still be teasing but Jinyoung's at something of a loss now.

"No?" He says dubiously, eyeing Jaebum warily as he takes a step towards him; he cocks his head, fiddling with the sleeves of Jinyoung's hoodie and pulling them down over his hands in a jerky, almost nervous way; he should really get him to take that off now, it's very distracting and still making Jinyoung's heart feel all fuzzy to see him in his clothes.

"Guess." Jinyoung rolls his eyes, ignoring Jaebum taking another few slow steps towards him.

"I don't know, you don't find them attractive?" He asks with a long-suffering sigh but Jaebum shakes his head with another cheeky grin.

"Nope." He pops the 'p' but Jinyoung's mood takes another nose-dive.

"So you do find them attractive." He says flatly, folding his arms and Jaebum comes to a stop, blinking at him confusedly.

"What? Jinyoungie, that's-" he heaves a sigh- "that's not the point and besides, I find everyone attractive, it's practically hardwired into me after all." That really does not help Jinyoung's currently spiralling doubts and subsequent insecurities but Jaebum for once actually seems to sense the hole into which he's digging himself and raises his hands in surrender. "Look, for the point of this discussion, it doesn't matter whether I find them attractive because regardless of whether I do, I still don't want to have sex with them." He's smiling still but more nervously, looking almost hopefully at Jinyoung who softens slightly, relaxes from his stand-offish stance and rubs his temples with the tips of his fingers.

"Alright." He mumbles, the ache in his chest soothed somewhat and Jaebum drops his hands, looks genuinely relieved. Jinyoung narrows his eyes at him when he takes another step towards him, now within arm's reach of him. "Why don't you want to fuck them then?" Jaebum doesn't reply immediately, just shuffles a tiny bit closer and raises a hand, stopping an inch or so from Jinyoung's cheek.

"May I?" He asks hesitantly, almost shyly and Jinyoung sighs and nods, mumbling an affirmative as his cheeks light up bright red; Jaebum cups his face, thumb stroking his cheek gently and there's something in his black eyes that Jinyoung can't place, something soft and warm but also apprehensive, scared even. But he seems determined, holding Jinyoung's gaze as he gulps and visibly steels himself, shoulders tensing and hand trembling against Jinyoung's cheek. "I- I told you before, that I hadn't- I hadn't slept with anyone else since I had with you." Jinyoung nods; he remembers that very clearly, he hadn't been able to stop thinking about it for days. Jaebum nods too, a little unconscious thing and he drops his hand to shove both deep into the pockets of Jinyoung's hoodie. "Well that was true. I mean, obviously it was but-" he laughs a little hysterically, high-pitched and uncontrolled, shoulders hunching a little; Jinyoung's heart twists at how small he looks right now, how much he seems to want to hide away from him but is making a real effort not to- "just, I haven't and I- I didn't really know why for a while, but recently I've been, well, I've been thinking about it and I think- I think I know now." He pauses, gulps again and licks his lips nervously, dark eyes anxiously searching Jinyoung's face. Jinyoung swallows hard too, palms sweaty where his hands are fisted under his arms.

"Why then?" He asks, has to clear his throat to make his voice audible and Jaebum smiles a little, one corner of his mouth pulling up ruefully then dropping back down into an anxious frown.

"I- I realised that I-" he closes his eyes for a moment, takes a deep breath and opens them again, liquid black and definitely scared now- "You, um- a while ago, you asked me if- if I'd been in love before and I- I haven't but-" he finally loses his nerve, breaks eye contact and ducks his head- "it doesn't- it doesn't feel like an impossibility any more. Not when I think about you." Jinyoung's breath rushes out of him all at once as though his heart has actually physically swelled as well as just metaphorically and pushed it all out and he can't drag another in quick enough to say anything before Jaebum continues sheepishly. "I don't really- I've never felt like this before, I don't really know what to do now," he confesses weakly, cringing further in on himself and keeping his eyes steadfastly on the floor, "and if- if this makes you uncomfortable and you don't want to bring me here anymore that's- that's okay-" it doesn't really look like it would be with how his face falls just at the thought- "but I just- I wanted to tell you-" he cuts off with a surprised squeak when Jinyoung grabs his hoodie (Jinyoung's hoodie) and hugs him tightly, burying his face into the crook of his neck.

"I like you too." Jinyoung mumbles, squeezing his waist like he'd disappear if he let go. Jaebum's completely frozen for a long moment, long enough that Jinyoung starts to let go, starting to panic that he's got the wrong end of the stick after all but the instant he loosens his arms even a fraction Jaebum grabs him, squeezing his shoulders as he starts to laugh, a genuine giddy thing that has Jinyoung's heart fluttering in his chest. Unable to hold back his own broad grin, Jinyoung closes his eyes, lets himself relax into Jaebum's arms, brings a hand up to comb gently through his hair.

"So I guess I really am your demon boyfriend, huh?" Of course he just had to ruin the fucking moment; Jinyoung wriggles his way out of his grip to punch him in the arm (but not too hard). It doesn't stop him from beaming though, eyes almost disappearing into crescents but then Jinyoung's pretty sure his grin is no smaller.

"Idiot." He grumbles; he does have an image to maintain after all. Jaebum can tell he doesn't mean it though, takes Jinyoung's hand and links their fingers together, his obvious happiness almost blinding.

"Can I kiss you, Jinyoung?" He asks quietly, shyness beginning to melt away back into his normal confidence now that he knows he's not going to be rejected and Jinyoung turns pink under his stare but nods.

"Yes, you can." He murmurs, eyes falling shut as Jaebum squeezes his hand and leans forward, gently cupping the back of his neck as he kisses him achingly sweetly. Jinyoung's free hand finds his waist and he can't helping sighing into it, nose brushing Jaebum's cheek as he tilts his head to press forwards a little more, coaxing Jaebum's lips apart and shuffling a little closer to him.

They part after a few moments, Jaebum's eyes staying closed a second longer than Jinyoung's, a broad smile curling his pink lips up as they flutter open and Jinyoung's heart feels like it's trying to escape when he sees the softly fond way he looks at him, hair falling over his forehead delicately when he cocks his head to the side, gently squeezing the back of Jinyoung's neck.

"You don't have to ask to kiss me." Jinyoung blurts, flushing bright red when Jaebum leans back, blinks confusedly at him, hand falling off Jinyoung's neck. "I- I don't know how your whole not-able-to-touch thing works in this sort of situation but you have- you have my permission to, you know, not ask every time. I'll tell you to stop if I don't want you to do something." Jaebum seems stunned, just stares at him for a while before he breathes a laugh, an almost wondrous look in his eyes.

"Are you sure?" He asks and Jinyoung just nods, squeezes his hand with a small embarrassed smile. He laughs again, smile blinding. "Okay." He murmurs, already leaning forwards and Jinyoung meets him halfway, squeezing his hand.

This kiss starts off chaste, gentle like the one before but soon enough Jinyoung's pulling him closer by the grip on his waist and his hand slides up to tangle in Jinyoung's hair, tilts his head a little more to deepen it then Jaebum's backing him up against the door, neither of them noticing the bang and rattling of it against the frame as Jinyoung's hands fist in his hoodie to drag him even closer, his arms wrapping around Jaebum's neck as his tongue flicks over Jinyoung's lips, pushing into his mouth when he parts them on a low groan. Jaebum's fingers dig into his hips then his hands smooth up and under his shirt as he tugs Jinyoung's lip between his teeth, palms scalding against Jinyoung's sides; Jinyoung's back arches up from the door, pressing closer with his head knocking back against the door, biting his lip on a gasp as Jaebum trails kisses down his throat with a rumbling laugh that settles heavily in Jinyoung's stomach, hands slipping downwards to grip his ass through his jeans and pull his hips against Jaebum's, grinding forwards into him with a pleased hum, eyes a deep yellow as he shifts back up to kiss Jinyoung again-

Someone bangs on Jinyoung's door, three hard thuds inches from his head and he leaps away from it with a startled yelp; his chin connects hard with some part of Jaebum's face but he barely noticed, whirls around with his eyes wide to stare at the door.

"Just because we know you've got a boyfriend now doesn't mean you two can fuck against the door, we can all hear you, Jinyoung!" Jennie calls through it irritably.

"Fuck you, Jennie!" Jinyoung snaps back but she just snorts, voice getting quieter and footsteps echoing down the stairs.

"I'll leave that to Jaebum if it's all the same to you!" There's a slam of her door and Jinyoung, fuming, turns back around, only to balk at the sight of Jaebum almost doubled over with both hands clapped to his mouth and his eyes screwed shut.

"Oh my god, are you okay?" He yelps, hands fluttering uselessly over Jaebum's; eyes watering slightly, he pulls his hands away from his mouth, gingerly prodding at the inside of his lip, fingertips coming away a little bloody. "Oh, fuck I'm so sorry, Jaebum, are you-" He stops when Jaebum bursts into laughter, slinging an arm around Jinyoung's shoulders to stop himself from falling over. Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Jinyoung steadies him, wondering what exactly he did in a past life to deserve this; he sniggers into Jinyoung's shoulder, grip going from holding himself up to just hugging Jinyoung to his chest. "You done?" Jinyoung asks dryly when he's mostly calmed himself, gets a soft snort and an arm squeezing his waist in response then Jaebum lifts his head, grinning at him with his yellow eyes glittering; his bottom lip is a little bit swollen, a little redder than just kissing could account for but there's no obvious blood that Jinyoung can see now. He peers closer, thumbs gently at his lip to check for the cut he clearly had but there's nothing really there, just a faint mark that looks days old and it fades even more as Jinyoung watches incredulously.

"Demon, remember?" Jaebum mumbles around his thumb; Jinyoung huffs, lets his hands fall to Jaebum's shoulders.

"Still, I'm sorry." He says sheepishly but Jaebum just shakes his head with a grin, pulls Jinyoung closer by the waist to kiss him again.

"Don't worry about it," he murmurs against Jinyoung's lips, "but maybe let's move somewhere else." He tugs Jinyoung towards his bed, sits on it and scoots backwards to give Jinyoung space to climb into his lap, straddling his hips to settle onto his thighs. Jaebum's hands cup his face and tug him back into a searing kiss, tilting his head just so and dragging him closer until he can hug him tightly around the waist; chuckling under his breath, Jinyoung goes with it, presses Jaebum back into the wall and running his hands through his hair. He hums, blinks heavy amber eyes open to look up at Jinyoung when he pulls back, licks his lips and smirks when Jinyoung lets out an unsteady breath, unable to look away from them but well, he's allowed to stare, he is Jinyoung's boyfriend after all.

"Everything okay, sweetheart?" It doesn't stop Jaebum's teasing though. Jinyoung ignores him, leans back in to kiss him again, holds his head still and coaxes (like it's hard) his mouth open, tongue dancing over his and the roof of his mouth. Jaebum's hands snake up under his shirt, press flat on his back, nails digging in slightly when Jinyoung bites his lip and tilts his head back to mouth down his jaw, gently sucks a mark over his pulse. "Jinyoungie-" Warmth pooling in his stomach at his slightly shaky gasp, Jinyoung just grazes his teeth down his throat, grinning when it bobs with a gulp and shifting back up to his lips as he tugs the zipper down on his hoodie and shoves it open. He's barely started pulling the silky shirt underneath up before it's gone and Jinyoung's palms hit Jaebum's bare stomach; he slides them up, thumbs brushing over his nipples and he twitches, hands slipping from Jinyoung's back to his ass and squeezing, fingertips digging in through the denim. Jinyoung pushes back into his hands with a low hum, just teasing the tip of his tongue with his teeth when he licks into Jinyoung's mouth, grabbing his hair and pulling hard enough to send shivers down Jinyoung's spine, hips canting up slightly at the dig of Jinyoung's nails into his chest. Dragging them down a little, Jinyoung shifts even closer, grinds down onto him and gasping both at the friction to his growing erection and the realisation that Jaebum's halfway hard too, the soft noise he lets out lost in Jinyoung's mouth.

Only panting slightly, Jinyoung's eyes stay shut for a moment when they finally come apart for air, forehead against Jaebum's, then lifts his head, meets his dark orange eyes, glittering under heavy lids as they study his face, kiss-bruised lips quirking up slightly.

"What do you want, Jinyoungie?" Jaebum murmurs, usual teasing tone mostly missing and fingers careful as he brushes Jinyoung's fringe out of his eyes, combs them back through his hair down to his neck to squeeze his nape gently, a sharp contrast to the pulling from moments earlier. Heart pounding for a slightly different reason, Jinyoung leans back in, pecks him on the lips before mouthing down to his throat, at the same time grabbing his wrists and pushing his hands down to his butt; he gets the hint, slips his hands under the waistband of Jinyoung's jeans and into his boxers, squeezes once before pulling them back out to undo Jinyoung's belt. With a groan Jinyoung clambers off him, wriggles his jeans and boxers off and kicks them aside, then Jaebum's pulling him back on top of him and into another kiss, all tongue and heavy breathing with the fingers of one hand twisted in his hair, the other skimming down his side to wrap around his cock, swallowing Jinyoung's moan with a grin and a hard nip to his lower lip. Jinyoung's sweating as Jaebum strokes him to full hardness, shirt sticking to his back and it's only then he realises he's still wearing it, goes to shift back to unbutton it but Jaebum doesn't let go, keeps stroking his cock languidly and staring at him with heavy eyes that get redder by the second; it takes him a few tries, fingers fumbling and clumsy and Jaebum keeps biting back laughter but eventually Jinyoung manages to shrug it off his shoulders, chucks it behind him somewhere.

"Thanks for the help." He grumbles sarcastically but Jaebum just smiles and sure, now he stops stroking him, both hands grabbing his ass and guiding him to grind his cock against his stomach. Narrowing his eyes at him, Jinyoung holds his face still and kisses the smirk off of it, shifts down so his ass is pressed right over the bulge in his jeans and rolling his hips onto it; the jeans vanish as his hips buck up a little and Jinyoung groans at the feeling of his cock slipping between his cheeks, already so hard and slick with precum despite Jinyoung having barely touched him.

"Fuck-" Jaebum gasps, pulls Jinyoung harder down against him and grinds up with a short breathless moan as Jinyoung tilts his head back, trailing wet kisses down his throat.

"Good idea." Jinyoung mumbles and Jaebum snorts, shoulders shaking with muted laughter but then he coaxes Jinyoung to sit up a bit, one hand leaving his ass, fingers wet where they skim his hip and Jinyoung presses closer, sucks a particularly dark bruise just under Jaebum's jawline as two fingers smooth over his hole, almost burning hot underneath the cool lube. Jinyoung gasps against his neck when they slowly press inside, Jaebum murmuring deep words of encouragement into Jinyoung's hair but it doesn't hurt (he did get fucked last night after all), especially when he immediately curls his fingers and rubs over his prostate and Jinyoung's cock jerks, fresh beads of precum spilling down it. He pumps his fingers in and out a few times, slick sounds just barely audible over Jinyoung's panting and Jinyoung pushes himself back up to kiss him again.

"I'm good." Jinyoung murmurs and Jaebum breathes a laugh but pulls his fingers out, sighing through his nose as he wraps the same hand around his own cock, eyelids fluttering shut as he slicks himself up with languid strokes. Jinyoung pushes up onto his knees, lets Jaebum line himself up and sinks back down, sighs as he bottoms out, burying his face in the crook of Jaebum's neck and wrapping his arms around his shoulders; breath hot and a little unsteady against Jinyoung's hair, Jaebum smoothes his hands up and down Jinyoung's back, gently squeezes his hips.

"You good?" He murmurs, low and amused and slightly hoarse and it sends a shiver through Jinyoung which in turn makes him let out a low gasp; he shifts Jinyoung back, pulls him into a kiss, tugging his lip between his teeth then soothing it with his tongue. Jinyoung hums, presses him back against the wall and experimentally rolls his hips down and fuck, that's good; both of them gasp, panting into each other's mouths and Jaebum's hands guide his hips, coaxing him to arch his back to get his cock to slip even deeper. "Fuck, you feel amazing, Jinyoungie-" Jaebum groans, voice achingly deep and vibrating through into Jinyoung where they're connected and he can't keep back another heavy sigh, eyelids fluttering as he pushes up higher onto his knees until Jaebum's cock is halfway out then drops back down, punching a low moan out of both of them.

Jaebum helps him find a rhythm, fingers digging into the swell of his ass as Jinyoung's squeeze his shoulders, pressing most of his weight onto his hands with their foreheads together as he starts riding him properly, thighs trembling already (he really needs to think about that discounted gym pass Jackson keeps offering him) and it only gets worse when Jaebum rolls his hips up to meet him, breathing heavy and shuddering with each thrust.

One of Jaebum's hands finds his face, knuckles just stroking down his cheek and gentle fingers cupping Jinyoung's jaw as a broad, genuinely happy smile curves his lips up, eyes wine red but incredibly soft; it's all rather tender and Jinyoung can't help flushing but he also can't help smiling back, leans in to kiss him, both of them a little clumsy but it has a little warm feeling blossoming in Jinyoung's chest anyway. Jaebum pulls him closer, lips sliding messily with Jinyoung's as he leans more heavily against the wall to give himself more leverage to fuck up into Jinyoung's ass harder, squeezing his ass as he does so. Jinyoung's head falls back and he blinks blearily upwards as waves of liquid pleasure flow his whole body, building and building and Jaebum's lips find his throat and he bites down gently, littering tiny bruises up and down, nipping at his collarbones. He hums when Jinyoung's nails dig into his shoulder, snaps his hips up a little harder as Jinyoung bounces back down.

"Oh, fuck-" Jinyoung's thighs almost give out at the perfect brush against his prostate, shivers wracking his back as molten heat pools in his gut and then Jaebum moves a hand around to grasp his cock, gathering up his precum to smooth the slide of his hand as he starts stroking him firmly- "Jaebum, I'm-" His head drops to the crook of Jaebum's neck, hips jerking slightly as he thrusts back up into the same place while his thumb rubs over the head of Jinyoung's cock, squeezing gently. Jinyoung groans weakly, clenching involuntarily as he nears his orgasm and Jaebum's deep, slightly broken moan into his ear is enough to push him the last of the way; he seizes up and falls still as his thighs give out, muffling staccato gasps into Jaebum's shoulder as he spills over his hand and onto his stomach.

Pressing a kiss to the side of his head, Jaebum works him through it slowly, just stroking hard enough to draw it out and letting go when Jinyoung shivers harder, squeezes his thigh then smoothes both hands up and down his sides soothingly but his cock is still so hard inside Jinyoung and he's practically panting into his ear. Also panting but freshly determined, Jinyoung lifts himself up, bites his lip against the oversensitivity and drops back down, languidly keeps riding him and he gasps, head knocking back against the wall with his eyes screwed shut and hips thrusting up erratically into each roll of Jinyoung's, fingers digging hard into his sides to keep him steady (which is good; he'd probably collapse otherwise). Jinyoung makes a noise that he refuses to classify as a whimper when his cock brushes past his prostate again sending painful pleasure through him but shakes his head when Jaebum goes to bring him to a stop.

"Don't- you can stop if you want to, Jinyoungie-" He says this but it's not very convincing when Jinyoung clenches around him and his hips buck up as he lets out a rumbling groan, eyelids fluttering. Jinyoung just smiles, slides his hands up into Jaebum's hair.

"I want to do this." He murmurs and an odd mixture of emotions, surprise, wonder, desire and a glowing fond happiness that has Jinyoung blushing all over again, flit across his face before he surges forward to kiss him, pulls Jinyoung's hips down to meet his thrusts upward and swallows Jinyoung's weak whine. Clutching at his hair maybe a little too tightly, Jinyoung can't help tensing up with each one but that doesn't seem to be a problem as Jaebum breaks their kiss to moan Jinyoung's name as his hips twitch upwards and his cock jerks and a shudder wracks his whole body as liquid heat fills Jinyoung; he grins, keeps their foreheads pressed together with his hands cupping Jaebum's face, works him through his orgasm with slow rolls of his hips. Through fluttering eyelashes Jaebum stares at him, that wonder back on his face, smiles broadly at him when he's done gasping and wraps his arms (still clad in Jinyoung's hoodie, he can't help but notice, something that's really set his heart thudding again) around Jinyoung's waist, pulls him closer to kiss him again, languid and warm rather than scalding and Jinyoung all but melts into it, running his fingers gently through Jaebum's hair.

"Would you stay tonight?" Jinyoung mumbles when they finally part, feeling ridiculously nervous asking despite Jaebum having done so multiple times without having been asked but then this is slightly different he supposes. Jaebum snorts softly, eyeing him amusedly.

"I mean, you're the one who has to send me back, so..." Jinyoung rolls his eyes and digs his nails into Jaebum's scalp in retaliation, wriggles in his grip to try and climb out of his lap. He doesn't get very far; Jaebum's now soft cock slips out of his ass and he's briefly distracted by the feeling of his cum dripping down his thigh but that's long enough for Jaebum's arms to tighten around his waist and for him to bury his face in Jinyoung's chest, muffling mumbled protests into it.

"If you want to go, I'll open the gate back up." Jinyoung grumbles half-seriously but Jaebum's shaking his head before he can even finish.

"No, I want to stay." Is muffled into Jinyoung's skin; he huffs, playing up the disgruntlement a bit but can't help his stupidly broad grin, simple happiness warming his chest.

"You sure? I thought you didn't like this plane." It's only fair really that Jinyoung gets to tease him even a fraction as much as he teases Jinyoung; Jaebum hums, presses a kiss to Jinyoung's collarbone then looks up at him, eyes soft under an amused light.

"It's growing on me," he murmurs, grinning when Jinyoung snorts, "you're here, after all." Fuck that's cheesy but that doesn't mean it doesn't make Jinyoung's cheeks flame again and his heart skip a beat, something Jaebum unfortunately notices if the little flick of his eyes down to his chest means anything; Jinyoung wriggles his way off his lap, grumbling about his ridiculousness but he lets himself be grabbed and dragged down next to where Jaebum's flopped to lie on his bed with only a sigh.

"You're an idiot." He says, but it accidentally comes out as more of an endeared compliment than as an admonishment. Jaebum just hums, hiding a grin into the crook of Jinyoung's neck and snuggling closer.

"You like me though, idiot or not." He mumbles and well, he may have a point there.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so that sure did happen huh  
> now u see why the song is appropriate lmao  
> hmu with ur thoughts!!! here or on [tumblr](http://jbibbles.tumblr.com/) as per usual :)  
> and also just thank u guys so much in general!! u guys who read this thing I write make me very happy and I wish u all the best ilu lads <3


	8. (Please don't) see me for what I am

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk I wasn't listening to anything specific again but this is a good song: [SMNM - everything](https://youtu.be/12JqqH2ubr8) it's good I promise

Jinyoung blinks awake slowly, mind struggling to catch up with the onslaught of new and disarming information recollecting yesterday brings; not only is he not going to be arrested thanks to having the most chill housemates on the planet, he also officially has a demon boyfriend. A demon boyfriend who is currently awake and staring at him with a soft fond look on his pretty if somewhat sleep-puffy face. Jinyoung flushes immediately, grumbling under his breath about creepy dudes watching him sleep but Jaebum just smiles.

"You don't mind really." Damn his voice is deep when he's just woken up; Jinyoung turns even pinker and looks away; he may have a point there. Jaebum just stares at him some more, looks almost nervous and Jinyoung's about to ask him what's wrong when his eyes flick down to Jinyoung's lips and up again, chewing on the inside of his cheek with a little uncertain frown on his face; it twigs but Jinyoung doesn't say anything, wants Jaebum to try it to prove he can just kiss him if he wants to. It takes him a good minute during which Jinyoung's strong stance has started to waver and he's about to just ask him to kiss him when he lets out a breath and leans forward, presses a hesitant peck to Jinyoung's lips then hovering millimetres away, eyes searching Jinyoung's for an affirmation; Jinyoung smiles, closes the distance himself this time and Jaebum relaxes, shifts forwards and winds an arm around Jinyoung's waist to tug him closer, palm almost scalding against the small of his back. Jinyoung's hand finds his neck, sliding up to comb his fingers through the short hair at his nape and urge him into shifting on top of him-

Jinyoung's phone starts blaring (he'd actually remembered to get it before crashing into bed last night, though now he's wishing he hadn't); with an irritated groan, he rolls onto his back, patting blindly on his bedside table until the heel of his hand collides with it and almost sends it flying off the table. That makes him sit up, cradling it gingerly as he swipes to answer, ignoring Jaebum's snickers behind him.

"Hello?" Jinyoung mumbles, rubbing his eyes.

"Jinyoung I need help." Jackson practically yells without any preamble. Jinyoung sighs heavily.

"What's happened?" He says tiredly; why must he be first port of call for every little inconvenience that happens to Jackson?

"Youngjae and Mark asked me to hang out with them tonight!" He says frantically, continuing before Jinyoung can even say anything. "They said they wanted to talk to me about something important! Do you think they've figured out that I like them and are going to tell me to leave them alone?!" Jinyoung again tries to cut in but he's in full rambling mode now. "Do you think I should say no? I haven't answered yet, I haven't even opened Mark's message I was just reading it off the notifications but still- oh no do you think they think I'm ignoring them?!" Jinyoung pinches the bridge of his nose.

"Jackson." He tries to interject to no avail.

"God they probably think I'm ignoring them because I know they know I like them, I don't know what to do, do you think I should say no? I'll probably just embarrass myself if I do go," he laments, "why do I have to be so embarrassing to be around?"

"Jackson!" Jinyoung halfway shouts and it stuns Jackson into brief silence. "Just chill out for a second and think about this calmly, okay? And you aren't embarrassing to be around, idiot, don't be so hard on yourself." He reprimands (mostly) gently and Jackson hums, mumbling something Jinyoung can't make out. "They just asked you to hang out, stop catastrophizing and just consider it properly." There's silence for a while, long enough that Jinyoung sighs and continues. "You literally hang out with them all the time, Jackson, crush or not they're still your friends." Jackson hums again.

"I guess you're right," he says reluctantly after a few moment's consideration, "it's probably fine, yeah?" Jinyoung nods.

"Of course it's fine." He says firmly; he knows what they want to talk to him about after all but it's not really his place to say anything, not about something like this. "Just try to relax, alright? They're your friends first and foremost, crush or not that's not going to change, okay?" Another beat of silence, then:

"Okay." He mumbles, sounding a little mollified but a lot relieved. Jinyoung sighs.

"You really do worry too much, you know that?" He says mostly teasingly but it's still true.

"Yeah, yeah," he grumbles, but there's a gratefulness to his tone, "how are things with you?" Jinyoung hums noncommittally, then pauses; maybe he should tell Jackson about this whole thing that's going on with Jaebum. He doesn't really have an excuse not to any more, considering his housemates all know now and Jackson should really have been the first to find out considering he's his best friend and all. Though it will be excruciating and Jackson's probably going to yell at him. Still, it's not fair to leave him out of the loop really, he thinks, looking over his shoulder at Jaebum who cocks his head curiously.

"Yo, earth to Jinyoung, everything okay?" Jackson half-way shouts, sounding more than a little disgruntled but worried as well.

"Yeah, uh," Jinyoung says distractedly, wondering how best to phrase this, "listen, there's- there's something I need to tell you." Jinyoung says nervously, chewing on the inside of his cheek. A light coming on in his eyes, Jaebum sits up and scoots up next to him, squeezes his hand, smiling reassuringly at him when he makes a somewhat pained face.

"What is it?" Jackson's tone just gets more worried; Jinyoung takes a deep breath.

"Okay well, it's- it's about my dissertation. Sort of." There's a few moments of confused silence.

"What?" He asks blankly; Jinyoung takes his hand back from Jaebum to rub his eyes.

"It's about the- the demon I've been summoning." Said demon has moved, shifted back on the bed behind Jinyoung, pulling him back a little against his chest between his legs and is nuzzling his face into the back of Jinyoung's neck. Flushing, Jinyoung swats at his thigh but he just smiles against his nape, pressing a kiss to the top of his spine.

"What, you mean fuckboy?" Jackson says blithely and quite loudly and Jinyoung winces, almost looks around but Jaebum doesn't seem offended, is muffling quiet laughter into Jinyoung's shoulder in fact with his arms around Jinyoung's waist. "What about him?" Jinyoung takes another deep breath, phone trembling against his ear.

"Well, I, um-" Jaebum's still grinning against his shoulder, shaking with silent laughter- "I might have... Slept with him." Silence for a moment, then-

"What?!" Jackson screeches full volume and Jinyoung has to pull the phone from his ear with a wince. "Jinyoung you said you were handling it! I didn't mean think you meant his dick!"

"Jackson quiet the fuck down!" Jinyoung hisses, jamming an elbow back into Jaebum's ribs to try and stop him from cackling but it just makes him laugh harder, warmth disappearing from Jinyoung's back as he flops to the bed.

"I'm sorry, you expect me to be quiet when you're telling me you fucked a demon?!" To his credit he's a lot quieter, whisper-shouting down the phone but Jinyoung's stomach still drops out from under him.

"Do not say that out loud Jackson!" He insists and Jackson splutters indignantly.

"You- what- you're such an idiot Jinyoung! How many times did you bang him?!" He demands and Jinyoung drops his head into his hand.

"About that-" Jackson gasps dramatically.

"You're still fucking him, aren't you?!" He's so high-pitched it's amazing Jinyoung can still hear him. "What the fuck Jinyoung?!" Jaebum's still cackling and Jinyoung wants nothing more than to smack him but he restrains himself.

"Look it's complicated but it's working out fine, I know what I'm doing-" Jackson barks a laugh.

"Yeah it certainly sounds like it!" He hisses sarcastically and Jinyoung stands up, starts pacing up and down.

"I do! I'm fine, it's not like he's awful, he's actually- actually quite nice-" Jaebum coos behind him but Jinyoung just flips him off- "and it's all safe like, I'm not being coerced or anything-" Jackson cuts him off with a series of high-pitched splutters.

"Jinyoung! That's not the point! You're fucking a demon! That's the definition of unsafe!" He's definitely encroaching on ultrasonic now. "Couldn't find a regular human fuckboy to get it on with?" Jinyoung drags a hand down his face.

"No, Jackson, just- listen to me for a minute, alright?" Jinyoung pleads and Jackson huffs but reluctantly hums to show he's listening. "Look it's- I know it was a stupid thing to initially do but he's not- well he is something of a fuckboy, I guess-" Jaebum squawks, looks somewhat offended but also a little smug for some reason (how does he even know what the term fuckboy means?)- "but he's actually, well, decent and I- I like him-" that sure feels weird to say to Jackson in the presence of Jaebum but hell, he might as well go all out; Jackson is eerily silent- "And he- likes me too." That feels even weirder; Jaebum's face-down in a pillow when he risks a glance over but the tips of his ears look fairly red. Jackson scoffs.

"Oh, really, does he?" He sounds utterly unconvinced but this is a stupid bit to be unconvinced by.

"Jackson he can't lie, remember? He told me that in no uncertain terms and he couldn't be lying about it." Jinyoung says reasonably and Jackson's silent for a moment.

"Still." He mumbles, begrudgingly; he's clearly forgotten that part.

"Jackson just- I know this maybe isn't the wisest thing to be doing but I promise you I am being as safe as I can be, alright? And Jaebum's not- oh, his name is Jaebum, by the way-" Jackson snorts- "he's genuinely pretty nice. I mean, I wouldn't be doing all this if I didn't know that." Jaebum's head pops back up to bat his eyelashes at him.

"Aww, Jinyoungie, you're being so nice about me, it's a bit weird." He coos, far too loudly and Jackson gasps over-dramatically.

"Is he- Jinyoung is he there right now?!" Jackson hisses and Jinyoung has to swallow down a nervous laugh at how scandalised he sounds, glaring daggers at Jaebum who just cocks his head, eyes wide and innocent.

"Well, yeah, he is actually." Jinyoung replies sheepishly; there's a smack of a hand on a table and Jackson huffs, grumbling wordlessly for a moment. "You- you okay?" Jinyoung asks hesitantly.

"I'm coming over and don't you dare kick fuckboy back to his plane or whatever." The blood drains from Jinyoung's face; this is far too soon after the housemate debacle and this will be so much worse, holy shit.

"Jackson I don't-" Jackson makes several spluttering noises to cut off Jinyoung's panicked words.

"You are going to introduce me to 'Jaebum'-" Jinyoung can just hear the air-quotes around that- "and you aren't getting out of it. Got it?" He demands and Jinyoung slumps again.

"Okay." He mumbles and Jackson huffs again.

"Good." He says briskly and the line goes dead; he's hung up on him. Jinyoung locks his phone and tosses it onto the bed, plopping down onto it and covering his face with both hands to groan loudly and wordlessly into them. Jaebum doesn't say anything, just scoots up next to him, body a pillar of warmth against Jinyoung's mostly bare side.

"I'm actually going to die." He laments; why him? Why must this be his life?

"You aren't going to die." Jaebum says amiably but Jinyoung just laughs bleakly.

"No, we're both going to die, Jackson's going to murder us both." He just gets a snort in response.

"He can certainly try." Jaebum says almost smugly, just chuckling when Jinyoung jabs an elbow into him and winding his arms around Jinyoung's waist, resting his chin on his shoulder.

"Let go, I need to get dressed." Jinyoung grumbles, prodding at his arms but they don't let go. "Jaebum." He shakes his head, hugging Jinyoung closer.

"I'm comfy though." He whines but he's hiding a grin against Jinyoung's shoulder. Jinyoung casts his eyes to the ceiling for strength; it takes a few minutes and some not so gentle pokes to his sides but Jaebum eventually does let him go, flopping onto the bed with a wounded sigh. Jinyoung eyes him unsympathetically as he grabs his discarded jeans.

"You need to put some clothes on too, you know." He says dryly and Jaebum groans dramatically but obeys, body blurring and when Jinyoung can look at him again he's wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants.

"Happy?" He gripes but Jinyoung ignores him with a roll of his eyes, buckling his jeans and yanking his wardrobe open to scan for a shirt. "So who is Jackson?" Jinyoung heaves a sigh, grabbing a white shirt and sliding it on.

"He's my best friend," he says reluctantly, "and he's... He's pretty intense. Lovely, but intense. And he's not- exactly approving of you it seems." Jaebum hums, shrugs when Jinyoung glances over at him, fumbling with the buttons on the shirt.

"I'm sure I can charm him into changing his mind." He says with a wink and a grin. Jinyoung huffs; if only it was so easy.

"You can certainly try." He mumbles, grabbing his phone and going to stash it in his pocket when it buzzes; a text from Jackson, saying he's about ten minutes away and not to send Jaebum back. "Look, I'm going to wait downstairs to let Jackson in, you- you stay up here." He says, rubbing his eyes and massaging his temples. Jaebum nods, flops back onto the bed, then sits back up again when Jinyoung squawks and grabs the hoodie from yesterday and a pair of sweatpants, thrusting them at him. "Also put these on-" Jaebum's clearly about to protest but Jinyoung just drops them onto his lap- "just, humour me, okay?" Jaebum rolls his eyes but shrugs the hoodie on, zips it up with a jerk, eyebrows raised pointedly. "Thank you." Jinyoung sighs again, this time in relief. "Just stay up here, I'll be back up when Jackson gets here." Jaebum nods from where he's flopped onto the bed to try and put the sweatpants on without standing up, waves a hand at Jinyoung who just shakes his head and heads for the door, shutting it with a click and trotting down the stairs, very thankful neither Jennie nor Momo appear to be up yet (he's not even entertaining the possibility of Yoongi being up, it's ten in the morning). He heads to the living room, plops down in a chair and drops his head into his hands, groaning into them. This is going to go very badly.

The ten minutes Jackson said he'd be drag out into what feels like three hours, Jinyoung switching between pacing up and down the living room and pacing up and down the hall to the front door; he's in the living room when three loud raps echo from it; Jinyoung slumps, rubbing his eyes but making his way over, opening it slowly. Jackson's standing with his fists on his hips, eyebrows raised and expression extremely unimpressed.

"Hi Jinyoung." He says, somehow making it sound like an accusation. Jinyoung heaves a sigh.

"Hi." He mumbles, stepping aside to let him in. He does so, levelling a suspicious glare at Jinyoung as he does so but Jinyoung ignores it, shuts the door and gestures for him to follow as he heads upstairs. Unfortunately, he runs into Jennie as she's heading for the shower; she looks confused for a moment then a gleeful grin spreads over her face.

"Are you here to meet Jinyoung's demon boyfriend, Jackson?" She asks, clapping her hands and cackling when he glares at Jinyoung some more and nods slowly. Jinyoung doesn't even say anything, already fucking exhausted despite getting up an hour ago and he trudges up the stairs to his door, shoving it open, Jackson hot on his heels with Jennie's laughter audible even through the bathroom door.

Jaebum's still sprawled on Jinyoung's bed, is holding one of the books from the pile on Jinyoung's bedside table and is reading the blurb but he looks over when they step inside, sits up and ruffles out the back of his hair.

"Hi." He says amiably, smiling warmly at Jinyoung and he's thankfully still in Jinyoung's hoodie and sweatpants. Jackson steps inside, glowering suspiciously at him.

"You're the demon?" He asks, almost snaps and Jinyoung restrains himself from punching him in the arm, settles for rolling his eyes and stalking over to his desk.

"You don't have to be a dick to him, Jackson." Jinyoung does snap; sure he might be a demon but Jackson's not really being very fair to him right now. Jaebum snorts, winks at Jinyoung when he glances over at him.

"It's fine, I'm not offended-" he looks over at Jackson appraisingly- "I am the demon, yes." Jackson hums, seems for whatever reason unconvinced.

"You don't look very demonic." Jaebum barks a laugh.

"If I did, Jinyoung's bed would be on fire." He retorts; Jinyoung pinches the bridge of his nose, a stress headache coming on already. Jackson's eyes are narrowed at him, then his glare cuts over to Jinyoung.

"You can make it so he won't, right?" He demands and both Jinyoung and Jaebum are confused, look at each other baffled but Jackson insists. "You know, like a ward or something, I don't know, I can't do magic." Jinyoung's mouth opens and closes a few times.

"I mean, yeah, I can write a ward for that but-" Jaebum laughs, almost nervously.

"I don't know if that's such a good idea-" Jackson cuts him off.

"What, you scared to show Jinyoung? Think he'll get scared off?" Jaebum's face falls slightly and he looks almost hurt for an instance, a little bit worried but he shuts it down quickly, settles for frowning at Jackson who's got his hands on his hips again, seems to be trying to square up as though for a fight.

"Jackson seriously, why are you being such an ass right now?" Jinyoung demands, glaring full-force when he rounds on him instead.

"Because, funnily enough, I don't trust him! He's a fucking demon Jinyoung!" Jinyoung's fists clench and he takes a step forwards.

"Don't talk about him like he's not here! And fine, maybe you don't, but you trust me, right? Can't you trust me to know what I'm doing?" He snaps back and Jackson's anger falters slightly and he looks a little guilty. Good. He deserves it for being such an ass.

"I just, you should know exactly what you're getting yourself into, Jinyoung, you-"

"Make the ward, Jinyoung." Jaebum's voice cuts through both of theirs as he stands up, fluidly shrugs Jinyoung's hoodie off to reveal the t-shirt he'd summoned into place earlier. Jackson's eyes bug out when he steps out of the sweatpants but he's wearing jeans; he stands next to Jinyoung, eyeing Jackson mistrustfully with his jaw locked. Jinyoung rubs his eyes tiredly.

"You don't have to-" Jaebum cuts him off without even looking at him.

"Just do it." He folds his arms, fists clenching but before they do Jinyoung notices they're shaking slightly. With a last glare at Jackson, who's seriously deflated now, looking more and more guilty by the second, Jinyoung turns on his heel, rifles through some stuff on his desk until he finds a ward template to contain any magic to its source (it should work to contain fire if the source is Jaebum himself), grabs some chalk and kneels down in the centre of the room, meticulously drawing out the runes.

"Stand in that." He says briskly when he's done, standing up and dusting his hands off. Jaebum steps inside and Jinyoung speaks the brief activation phrase, the runes pulsing with something like a heat haze and the circle seals with a dull pop. "Okay, you're good." Jaebum nods slightly, keeps his gaze fixed on some point on the wall as he takes a deep breath; he seems very genuinely nervous but steels himself and his entire form shivers and blurs and Jinyoung's ears pop as though he was summoning him again. The blur takes longer to resolve than usual, something like sparks appearing around the edges, but when it does, Jinyoung's mouth drops open before he can stop it.

"Holy shit." Jackson blurts. Jaebum's jaw locks again but he doesn't say anything; well, he'd said in the past that his regular human form was the closest approximation of what he looks like and that's true, he does look pretty similar, face and body mostly the same, though there are several rather dramatic modifications. Such as the horns curling up from his forehead, dark grey but shimmering every colour like an oil slick, and his eyes which are now entirely black, iris and whites and all, reflecting orange when they catch the light, similar to a cat's. His hair is a fiery copper-red, lifting and stirring as though catching a non-existing breeze, sparks lighting and falling from it every so often and there's a very slight glow to his face and arms as though he's lit on fire inside and it's just visible flickering through his skin.

"Happy?" He snaps at Jackson, revealing bright white teeth, all of them sharp and dangerous-looking, tail- holy shit he's got a tail, the same shimmering grey as his horns and it's lashing agitatedly behind him. Now that he's looking down Jinyoung notices the smoke rising from where his bare feet are touching the floor; it's not on fire, but it is disconcerting and Jinyoung now sees the reason for the wards.

"Holy shit." Jackson repeats faintly, openly gaping and Jaebum's posture gets even more rigid and he unfolds his arms to jerkily ruffle the back of his hair; Jinyoung gets a glimpse of his hands, fingers now ending in wicked-looking inch-long claws, also that same grey which blends seamlessly into the skin of his fingers. It's hard to tell where he's looking now his eyes are entirely one colour but Jinyoung feels his glance like a physical weight, equally feels him look away, an unhappy expression passing briefly over his face and he seems to shrink in on himself a little bit.

"Jackson would you leave for a minute?" Jinyoung says abruptly, making both Jaebum and Jackson look at him in surprise, but Jackson's clearly shocked enough to obey automatically as he nods and quickly heads for the door, clicking it shut behind him. Jaebum looks away again, tail still whipping behind him nervously. "You know this changes absolutely nothing, right?" He says firmly because it doesn't; sure it was a shock to see this whole demonic thing for the first time but it's not like he didn't know he's a demon for goodness' sake. He actually looks pretty cool, even if the whole one-colour-eyes thing is a little disconcerting. He also looks very stunned right now, is blinking at Jinyoung in disbelief.

"You- really?" He says blankly and Jinyoung nods, smiling reassuringly and internally fighting the urge to roll his eyes because obviously it doesn't, especially considering he doesn't usually look all demonic and dangerous. It takes a minute for that to really sink in but it's obvious when it does because Jaebum relaxes, dropping his nervously confrontational stance and his tail falls still, a small but incredibly relieved smile tugging one corner of his mouth. His lips are very distractingly red, almost like he was wearing lipstick; they part on a wider smile and he breathes a laugh, looking down almost shyly.

"What?" Jinyoung asks, equal parts disgruntled that he's being laughed at and amused. Jaebum shakes his head, keeps his eyes down as he gingerly touches the base of one horn, more sparks flying from where the tips of his claws touches it as though they were pieces of flint striking together.

"I just- even in my plane I don't- look like this very often. It's- most of us, demons I mean, wear glamours all the time even over there, succubi especially and I just- don't want to-" he pauses, laughing squeakily- "I don't want you to-" he covers his face with both hands, muffling a groan into them- "shit this is embarrassing, I just- I want you to like me, Jinyoung, I want to impress you, but this is- I don't want to freak you out." Is mumbled into his palms and Jinyoung's chest feels tight but he can't stop smiling.

"You idiot, I'm not going to stop liking you because of this," he says warmly, "I mean, I was aware you were a demon before this, you know?" The impact of Jaebum's glare is somewhat lessened by the fact he's peeking through his fingers. "Now change back so I can hug you without setting myself on fire." Jaebum snorts softly but obeys, comes back into focus in his regular human form and Jinyoung kicks the circle, the energy dissipating with a pop, then hugs him, winds his arms around his waist and hooks his chin over his shoulder. Jaebum hugs him back tightly, burying his nose into his hair and letting out a long relieved sigh. Smiling fondly, Jinyoung squeezes his waist then shifts back after a moment, leans up the half-inch between them to kiss him gently, heart fluttering when he cups his face like it's something precious, lips soft and just as gentle. Slightly dazed, Jinyoung blinks quickly when they part, blushing when he registers the small, almost reverent smile on Jaebum's face.

"U-um, I should probably let Jackson back in." He stammers when he can form words again and Jaebum's brow furrows but he nods reluctantly. "Hey, he- he'll come around, you know? He's just worried about me." Another nod but he doesn't seem convinced. "Just, trust me, okay?" One more nod, a sheepish smile pulling the corners of his lips up. Satisfied, Jinyoung steps away, heads for his door; Jackson's sitting at the bottom of the stairs when Jinyoung pokes his head out; he jumps up immediately, expression regretful and he takes the steps two at a time when Jinyoung beckons him back up.

"Hey so I was a real douchebag to you for pretty much no reason, Jaebum," he starts as soon as he gets through the door, "so I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been so judgemental about you." Jaebum seems somewhat floored but Jinyoung was half-expecting as much from him when he first glimpsed the guilt in his expressions. "I was just worried about Jinyoung, you know? It's not an excuse for me being an asshole though, so I'm really sorry." He hangs his head shame-faced. Jaebum's still stunned into silence so Jinyoung shakes his head and claps Jackson on the shoulder, shaking his head when Jackson glances over at him sheepishly.

"You're an idiot too." He says but it's fond and Jaebum finally manages to find his voice.

"It's okay, I mean, I understand your, uh, misgivings, but-" he flushes ever so slightly, frowning at Jinyoung's knowing eyebrow waggle- "I- I do really like Jinyoung. So I'm not going to hurt him or anything." He looks intensely embarrassed to be saying that aloud, even more so than when he was saying it to Jinyoung but it's worth it because the last of Jackson's reservations appear to disappear and he straightens back up.

"Okay-" Jackson puts his hands on his hips again but it's more of a determined stance than an aggressive one- "well, let's start again then. I'm Jackson, it's nice to meet you and I promise I'm not as much of a dick as you must think I am." Jaebum laughs, looks at Jinyoung for support; Jinyoung winks, nodding encouragingly so he shrugs, shaking his head.

"Okay, well, I'm Jaebum, as you've heard. It's nice to meet you too?" He accidentally turns it into more of a question but Jackson nods, steps forwards to offer his hand to shake. Jaebum doesn't move, just eyeing it with a long-suffering sigh and Jackson's confused for a moment, then a lightbulb clearly goes on in his head.

"Oh yeah, you can shake my hand-" he grins- "you have my permission." Jaebum laughs slightly and does so, wrinkling his nose at Jinyoung's snort. Jackson looks over his shoulder and sticks his tongue out at him; they've been civil for two minutes and they're already ganging up on him. Honestly (he's actually so relieved he feels lightheaded but that's by the by).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~overdramatic chapter title is overdramatic~~  
>  so that didn't take me as long to write as I thought it would considering how fuckin tired ive been since starting synthetic labs rip  
> hope u enjoyed!! Jackson is now up to speed which is good  
> hmu in the comments with thoughts or come chat to me on [tumblr](http://jbibbles.tumblr.com/) I want more friends on there!! please come talk to me!! on anon if u like!! pls T^T


	9. Take me out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song for this chapter is [i like it - the tech thieves](https://youtu.be/8gvIC5TUuTI) it's a dope song from a cool music channel I just found like a week ago

The "ganging up on Jinyoung" trend continues.

"You mean he hasn't let you out of his room?" Jackson sounds scandalised. Jinyoung's head smacks against his desk.

"Well, he let me downstairs once." Jaebum says, sounding incredibly mournful about that. Jinyoung doesn't look or sit up.

"Jinyoung!" Jackson exclaims, has his hand clapped to his chest with an utterly shocked look on his face and quite frankly this is getting ridiculous.

"You were literally about to fight him ten minutes ago Jackson and now you're yelling at me for us not, what, going outside?" Jinyoung says scathingly, lifting his head to fold defiant arms over his chest but Jackson just shakes his head gravely.

"I mean the guy's clearly a good enough fuck that you kept on breaking the law to see him-" Jinyoung is literal fucking seconds away from smacking Jackson upside the head, inching ever closer when Jaebum pointedly raises his eyebrows and smirks at him, eyes flashing red- "the least you could do is take him on a fucking coffee date or something." Another shake of his head, expression almost disappointed; Jinyoung picks up an eraser and throws it at Jackson's head. Jaebum, the ass, reaches over and effortlessly plucks it out of the air before it can connect with Jackson's forehead (it was such a perfect shot too) but it doesn't stop Jackson from flopping dramatically onto Jinyoung's bed, crying out about injustice and bullying friends.

"Go fuck yourself Jackson." Jinyoung snaps dismissively and Jaebum has to physically turn away from both of them, trying to muffle his laughter into his hand.

"Why must you always be so mean to me, Jinyoung?" Jackson laments, wiping away non-existent tears. Jinyoung almost bangs his head against the desk again, maybe hard enough to knock himself unconscious so he doesn't have to deal with this right now, but then that would leave Jaebum alone with Jackson and who even knows what kind of ridiculous shit they could get each other into between the two of them. He doesn't even bother to respond to that however, turning back to his desk and rifling through for some work he can pointedly do with a lot of loud sighing. "Okay well, dramatic as all this has been, I have my own drama to prepare for," Jackson says, dramatically, as he clambers to his feet, "wish me luck guys, I may not come out of this alive." Jinyoung rubs his eyes.

"Jackson you aren't meeting Mark and Youngjae until this evening, you don't need to start preparing now." Jinyoung says reasonably but alas, Jackson has never been very good with reasonableness.

"I need that long to mentally prepare myself for every possible outcome." He heaves a long sigh, face genuinely falling slightly; Jinyoung softens, is about to go and give him a hug when Jaebum pipes up.

"What's going on?" He asks, clearly confused and oh boy was that the wrong thing to say; Jackson all but throws himself back onto Jinyoung's bed, groaning into the duvet.

"He's been dancing around asking a couple of our friends out for months now." Jinyoung says dryly and sure enough, Jackson pops back up to point an indignant finger at him.

"You fail to mention the fact that they're already dating each other!" Jackson exclaims. Jinyoung rolls his eyes.

"You fail to mention the fact that they're both head-over-heels for you-" Jinyoung retorts but Jackson starts spluttering.

"You don't know that! You say that but you don't know-" Jinyoung's forehead drops into his hand, elbow propped up on the desk.

"Yes, I do-" Jaebum cuts both of them off this time.

"I don't mean to sound like a, you know, demon who doesn't know how this shit works but like, if they like you and you like them, what's the problem?" He asks, sounding very much like a demon who doesn't know how this shit works but one who can see the logical goddamn conclusion these facts point to; Jinyoung waves a hand at him, eyebrows pointedly raised at Jackson, who flops back onto his back.

"It's not that easy, though!" He whines, wriggling around and messing up Jinyoung's (admittedly not very neat) bedcovers. Shaking his head fondly, Jinyoung gets to his feet, pads over to plop down next to Jackson and pat his knee reassuringly.

"It will be with Mark and Youngjae, okay, just trust me and trust them." Jackson's pouting very heavily but he sits up, smoothes down his ruffled hair and nods glumly. Jinyoung hooks an arm around his neck and pulls him into a hug, one he returns eagerly, burying his face into the crook of Jinyoung's neck. "You'll be fine." He mumbles, rubbing his back. Jackson makes an uncertain noise but shifts after a moment, moving back to nod again, marginally more cheerful. "Just be yourself and feel confident that no matter what happens, they'll still be your friends, okay?" Another nod and Jackson sniffs, scratching his nose.

"Okay," he mumbles, "I'll try." Jinyoung hugs him again quickly, squeezes his shoulders. He looks even better when Jinyoung lets go, pushing himself to his feet. "Just, if things don't- don't go well, I might come over and you know, have a cry, if that's okay with you." Jinyoung rolls his eyes and stands up too.

"Of course it's okay, idiot, I'm here if you need me, whenever you need me." Jackson smiles weakly at him then heaves another sigh, but seems to mentally steel himself somewhat, throwing a salute over at Jaebum and hugging Jinyoung again.

"Nice to meet you, demon boyfriend," he says over Jinyoung's shoulder; for goodness' sake, he has a name, "see you guys around. Wish me luck." The last part is almost mumbled as he lets go of Jinyoung and heads for the door.

"Good luck." Jinyoung and Jaebum both chorus at the same time. "You won't need it." Jinyoung adds. Jackson just waves him away and pulls the door shut behind him, footsteps clattering quickly down the stairs. Shaking his head fondly, Jinyoung turns on his heel, smiling at Jaebum's now much more obviously lost expression. "He's got a massive crush on two of our friends who happen to be dating each other, but they have an equally massive crush on him, but he can't see it despite literally everyone else saying that they do and has been panicking about it for about four months." Jinyoung keeps the long story as short as he can; Jaebum still looks somewhat baffled but nods as though he gets it, though to be fair Jinyoung doesn't entirely get it himself. But then Jackson's always been prone to being dramatic and overthinking just about everything he can.

"Well I hope it works out." Jaebum says, sentiment genuine if still very confused and Jinyoung nods, plops down next to him; a little bubble of warmth bursts in his chest when Jaebum's arm automatically finds its way around his waist to pull him closer and Jinyoung drops his head onto his shoulder, a silly smile on his face. It fades quickly though and Jinyoung sits back up, feeling very stupidly nervous as he glances at him.

"You- about what Jackson was saying before, do you- actually want to go on a date with me?" He asks haltingly, feeling his face burn bright red but it might be a little bit worth it when Jaebum's eyes light up before looking down with a smile that, if it were on anyone else, would be called shy.

"I- Yes. I would like that." His mouth twists slightly. "I don't want to do anything that might get you into trouble though. Like if someone figures out I'm a demon or something." He sounds almost wistful and Jinyoung nudges his side, smiling when he looks up.

"That's not a problem, I can write something to mask your whole-" he waves a hand generally at him- "demon thing. You'll just have to not shift forms out in public or anything." He snorts, wrinkling his nose at Jinyoung.

"I'm not that much of an idiot," he says haughtily, but his expression turns a little worried, "are you sure it'll be okay?" Jinyoung finds his hand, squeezes it briefly before standing up and heading for his desk, rifling through some of his lecture notes; how fortuitous he literally studied masking spells last year so he should have all his workings and charms around here somewhere. It does take a couple of minutes' determined rummaging but he eventually finds what he's after, pulls the notebook out with a triumphant grin.

"It'll be fine." He flips through the notebook, eventually finds the general-purpose magic dampener that they learned in the first lecture or so and digs out a pad of paper. "Technically I should draw this on you but then it might get rubbed off or something, so just keep a hold of this and it should work to hide your magical aura." Jinyoung says absently as he copies out the design, seals it with a murmured phrase; the scrawled patterns flare a shimmering violet then fade back to black and Jinyoung folds it carefully into quarters, turns around to offer it to Jaebum who's staring at him with an expression that halfway between confused and awed. "What?" Jinyoung asks, slightly embarrassed and blushing a little bit. He shakes his head slightly, grinning broadly.

"Nothing, it's just really amazing. What you can do, I mean." Jinyoung's blush goes from a little pink to bright red very quickly and he splutters a laugh, shaking his head and dropping the paper into Jaebum's lap before heading over to his wardrobe, rifling through his jackets.

"It's nothing that impressive really." He mumbles, then jumps almost out of his skin when arms wind around his waist and lips press to the corner of his jaw.

"Just take the compliment, sweetheart," Jaebum murmurs, squeezing his waist briefly before letting go again, "though can I use your shower before we go?" Jaebum asks suddenly, stretching his arms over his head; Jinyoung blinks at him blankly for a moment both because it has never occurred to him that Jaebum might actually need to clean himself, which is a bit stupid, now he thinks about it, and because he's still recovering from the sudden hug and far too deep voice right in his ear.

"Uh, sure." He says when he's somewhat coherent, jerking his head for Jaebum to follow him, grabbing his towel off the hook by the door and leading him outside and down the stairs. Momo's door is shut tight as usual but for once Jennie's is too, her having left to go to the supermarket or something (Jinyoung barely glanced at the notification from the group chat, too busy getting mercilessly ripped to pieces by Jaebum and Jackson's tag-team efforts) and Jinyoung leads him past them to the bathroom, pushes the door open and waves him through.

"Push the button to turn the water on and turn the dial to adjust the temperature." Jinyoung says, about to turn around and leave him to it but Jaebum grabs his wrist and pulls him inside.

"Come shower with me, Jinyoungie." Jaebum says with a salacious yellow-eyed wink over his shoulder, lets go of his wrist to shrug off Jinyoung's hoodie and start stepping out of his sweatpants and Jinyoung splutters a little bit because it's obviously not going to be just a shower and he may actually get murdered by Momo if they end up knocking over some of her various products in there (she's a sweet pure soul, but even she has her limits).

"It- I- there's not enough space." Jinyoung says lamely, keeps his eyes firmly above Jaebum's shoulders as his t-shirt and boxers dissolve in a blur because just thinking about his body wet and dripping is bad enough.

"Yeah there is." Jaebum says simply and damn he's probably right actually, their shower is actually a pretty decent size. Jinyoung feels his cheeks getting redder but he attempts to reason his way out of it because he really doesn't want to have to clean the shower out, regardless of how tempting the offer is.

"I- you- Momo's probably in her room, she could hear us." His face feels on fire right now, not helped by Jaebum stepping right up to him and tilting his head back up with a finger under his chin, a knowing smirk curving his lips up as his deep-yellow eyes run over Jinyoung's face.

"We'll just have to be quiet then, won't we?" He murmurs, leaning in to peck Jinyoung on the cheek then turning away. "But I mean, if you don't want to..." He says airily over his shoulder, stepping away and into the shower with a wistful sigh. Jinyoung glares at his ass for a moment, squeezes his eyes shut when the water starts running. He doesn't even pull the curtain across.

"You're such an idiot." He mumbles to himself as he starts to unbutton his shirt. He's not sure whether he's referring to Jaebum or himself however, as he's probably just as much of an idiot for following him into the cubicle when he's fully undressed and drawing the curtain shut behind him. Jinyoung (for now) makes an effort to not blatantly stare at Jaebum's back or butt, meets his knowing glance over his shoulder with a withering glare. "Move over then, it's cold." Jinyoung complains and Jaebum snorts but complies, head cocked as he very obviously looks Jinyoung up and down before settling somewhere just below his eyes. "What?" Jinyoung mumbles, heaving a sigh as the warm (hot actually, almost too hot but then Jaebum's temperature does run that much hotter than Jinyoung's) water washes over him. Jaebum's hair is plastered to his forehead, little rivulets trickling down from longer bits as he stares down at Jinyoung's lips, throat bobbing as he swallows when Jinyoung licks them and sucks the lower between his teeth, biting down on it just slightly; he might be feeling a little smug about the fact that Jaebum can't take his eyes off his mouth, even when Jinyoung cocks his head curiously.

"Your lips are so pretty, Jinyoungie," Jaebum murmurs, one hand coming up to tilt Jinyoung's head up slightly by the chin, thumb pulling at the lower, "but then you're just very pretty in general." He says this with a wink, finally looking up; flushing, Jinyoung rolls his eyes but steps a little closer, leans forward to kiss him. With a pleased hum, he cups Jinyoung's face between his palms, the tip of his tongue running over Jinyoung's lips until he parts them with a sigh, palms smoothing up Jaebum's back and nails digging in just slightly to hear him hum. He breaks the kiss briefly to shove his hair up and out of his eyes and Jinyoung may internally swoon a little bit, but he thinks he covers it decently, barely gulping and not hesitating to pull Jaebum back into him, head tilting to let his tongue push deeper into his mouth. Jaebum's hands find his hips and he smiles, tugs him to step closer and for all his earlier grumbling he goes more than willingly, winds both arms around Jaebum's neck and tilts his head to deepen the kiss, breath catching when Jaebum's teeth just dig into his lip. He lets out a noise (it wasn't a squeak) when Jaebum's hands slip around to squeeze his ass gently; so he's a little tender from last night, it's not that surprising.

"Thought we needed to be quiet, Jinyoungie." Jaebum purrs, far too smugly for Jinyoung's liking; he shoots him an unimpressed glare, but it loses some impact when he can't help letting his eyes trail downwards, tracing droplets as they track down Jaebum's chest but Jaebum's tilting his head back up before he can get much lower, pulling him back into another peck then lifting his chin higher to press wet lips to his throat. "You seem a little distracted, sweetheart." Jaebum rumbles and Jinyoung would smack him for being a smartass if he wasn't paying such wonderful attention to that sensitive spot just under the corner of Jinyoung's jaw. As it is and coupled with the continued gentle kneading of his ass, Jinyoung lets it slide (just this once) in favour grabbing Jaebum's hair to tug his head back up and kiss him again insistently, backing him up through the spray of the showerhead to push him against the wall; it's his turn to try and smother a squeak as Jinyoung pushes a thigh between his legs, but he's the one who slides down the wall a fraction to grind down onto it. Side note: this is the first and probably the last time Jinyoung's ever going to be grateful for the awful non-slip mat thing their landlord has to give them in case one of them slips in the shower and breaks something and sues, because if that wasn't there one of them would have definitely fallen on their ass by now.

"Jinyoungie-" Jaebum's far too loud moan cuts through Jinyoung's internal monologue and in his sudden panic at the thought of Momo hearing something and coming to check if everything's alright (she's done that to Jennie and Jisoo before and she hadn't been able to look either of them in the eye for a week) he reels back and claps a hand to Jaebum's mouth. It actually takes Jaebum by surprise too if the way his eyes pop wide open is any indication.

"Seriously, we do actually need to be quiet, okay?" Jinyoung hisses and he can fucking feel Jaebum's smirk against his palm but he nods, amber eyes innocently wide; glaring suspiciously, Jinyoung slowly removes his hand. Jaebum's still smirking when he tugs Jinyoung back in, one hand skimming down his sides to grab his hips and urge him into grinding against him slowly, a breathy sigh escaping his throat. The other twists in Jinyoung's hair, tilting his head slightly to kiss him harder, swallowing every tiny noise his tongue and the friction against Jinyoung's hardening cock coaxes out of him. It is somewhat gratifying to note that Jaebum's equally as hard, nails digging slightly into Jinyoung's scalp with every shift of Jinyoung's thigh, gasping softly when Jinyoung's fingers dig into his hips and one hand slides down to grab at the meat of his thigh; breathing heavily, he breaks the kiss, head knocking back against the wall with a lopsided grin as he strokes Jinyoung's jaw with his thumb, eyes a dark glittering orange that ticks over to red as he watches.

"Would you fuck me Jinyoungie?" He murmurs, grin just widening when Jinyoung gulps and nods slowly; he's still a touch dubious about doing it in here but then again he also really fucking wants to. It'll be fine (hopefully), he'll just clean it and rearrange anything they knock over, no one need ever know. Jaebum pecks his lips once more, winks when Jinyoung wrinkles his nose at him then gently pushes him away and to the side slightly. Jinyoung's slightly confused for a moment but realisation slams into him like an almost physical weight when Jaebum bends over, rests his forehead against the arm he braces against the wall and tilts his hips up slightly to give Jinyoung one hell of a view as his (clearly very practised) fingers skim over his ass, middle fingertip circling his hole before pressing inside smoothly, sliding in and out a couple of times. Back arching slightly, he sighs, slips it almost out to press a second finger in alongside, a tiny noise catching at the back of his throat.

"Jinyoungie, are you just going to stand there?" He murmurs, a grin clearly in his voice and it's then that Jinyoung's just watching open-mouthed and motionless; flushing, he grabs Jaebum's wrist and pulls his fingers out, replacing them with two of his own. He practically purrs, pushing backwards into him and bracing both hands against the wall, lifts his head to smirk over his shoulder at Jinyoung, who just glowers at him despite his cock being almost painfully hard right now. Unfortunately finding his prostate doesn't stop the smugness, just makes it worse in fact as he moans far too loudly, eyelids fluttering but gaze still locked with Jinyoung's, crimson eyes liquid and heavy-lidded.

"Seriously, be quiet." Jinyoung hisses but Jaebum just grins and clenches around Jinyoung's fingers. Eyes narrowed, Jinyoung pulls them back out, steps right up behind him (his back's against the other wall at this point) to grind his neglected cock against his ass and he hums, biting his lip on another smirk and pushing his ass back into Jinyoung's hips. He lets out a long sigh as Jinyoung lines himself up and pushes inside smoothly, just lifting into a low hum as he bottoms out; Jinyoung forces down a groan, heart kicking up a gear because how can he always be so goddamn tight? He has to take a moment to calm his heartbeat somewhat, long enough that Jaebum makes a displeased noise and decides to take matters into his own hands somewhat and shifts forwards a little so he can roll his hips back again.

"Come on, Jinyoungie," he complains, narrowing his eyes over his shoulder at Jinyoung, "fuck me already." Jinyoung's eyes narrow too and he's not entirely sure what comes over him but he smoothes a hand up Jaebum's back and fists it in his hair, physically turns his head back towards the wall as he pulls almost out (the tiles are very cold on his ass as he moves back but there seems to be room enough) to thrust forwards hard, swallowing down a less than quiet groan; Jaebum in contrast doesn't, lets out an entirely too loud yelp that tails into a satisfied moan, fingers twisting into fists against the wall. Letting go of Jaebum's hair in favour of holding onto his sides, Jinyoung bites his lip hard as he finds a rhythm, the sounds of the shower covering the smacks of their hips and Jaebum now thankfully makes an actual effort to be quiet, just gasping each time Jinyoung fucks into him. His back is arched at an angle that looks actually painful though, so Jinyoung pulls out, much to Jaebum's vocal irritation but he stops his wordless complaining when Jinyoung pushes him forwards half a step so he's bent over less harshly, snakes an arm around his waist and drops a kiss onto his shoulder blade as he pushes inside again. He lets out a strangled whine, clearly trying his best to be quiet as he jerkily rolls his hips back into Jinyoung's thrusts, head hanging between where his forearms are braced against the wall, palms flat against it and fingers twitching with each thrust. A particularly rough snap of Jinyoung's hips has him jolting, surprising a startled gasp out of him as his walls suddenly tighten; Jinyoung muffles a moan into his shoulder, fingers digging bruises into his hips and Jaebum shivers, rocking back into each thrust smoothly and biting his lip hard to keep from groaning aloud.

Jinyoung doesn't bother pulling out when he pushes Jaebum forwards again so he's almost stood straight, leans over him to nose at the back of his neck as he gasps and tries to fuck himself backwards as best he can at the new angle. He chokes on Jinyoung's name at a particularly hard grind of Jinyoung's hips, reaches backwards with one hand to grab at Jinyoung's hair, fingers twisting less than gently but the tingles of pain just shoot straight to his cock and his hips snap forwards a little more jerkily, gasping something that could have been any of a range of words into the nape of his neck (but it was probably Jaebum's name).

"Fuck, Jinyoungie-" He gasps, clenching involuntarily as Jinyoung's fingers find his nipple; hips starting to stutter as his orgasm starts to approach, Jinyoung slides his hand down Jaebum's chest in an attempt to wrap it around his cock but Jaebum grabs his wrist, pulls it back off. "No I want-" he cuts off in a moan as Jinyoung grinds into his prostate again, walls fluttering around Jinyoung's cock- "I want to come from this, just-" another, louder moan as Jinyoung can't help the sharp buck of his hips because holy shit that's really fucking hot; he slips his hand down to cover Jaebum's, interlaces their fingers and pins it back against the wall. Panting into his neck, Jinyoung's thrusts become less and less coordinated, liquid heat pooling behind his navel and what feels like his whole body starts trembling.

"Jinyoung-" Jaebum gasps, voice cracking on a high whine as Jinyoung's teeth dig into his shoulder to muffle a loud groan as he comes, eyes screwing shut and hips snapping forwards roughly to draw it out- "fuck, Jinyoung-!" his hand leaves Jinyoung's hair to clamp over his mouth, deep moans lost against his palm as he seizes up and clenches almost painfully hard around Jinyoung's cock, cum painting the white tiles of the shower wall. Biting back a whimper, Jinyoung fucks him through it slowly, almost lightheaded, until Jaebum's hand drops from his mouth and his head lolls backwards against Jinyoung's shoulder, a dopey fucked-out grin on his face.

Jinyoung pulls out carefully, flushing at Jaebum's slight gasp, then, keeping his grip on the hand he'd pinned to the wall, wraps both arms around Jaebum's waist, nuzzling into the back of his neck. Breathing a laugh, Jaebum's head turns, a broad grin curving his eyes up when Jinyoung glances up, free hand coming up to stroke gently through his hair.

"You okay there?" Jaebum asks teasingly, squeezing Jinyoung's fingers. Jinyoung wrinkles his nose but unwraps himself somewhat, lets Jaebum turn around then winds his arms back around his waist.

"That's my line, isn't it?" He grumbles back, ignoring the amused grin on Jaebum's face in favour of staring slightly guiltily at the livid red mark his teeth have left in Jaebum's shoulder. "Sorry." He mumbles sheepishly but Jaebum seems confused, glancing down at himself then snorting softly, lifting a hand to trace his fingertips over the mark.

"You don't need to apologise, Jinyoungie," he murmurs, leaning forwards to capture Jinyoung's lips gently, wraps both arms around his neck and combs fingers through his hair, "I don't mind." He pulls back to grin at Jinyoung, winking exaggeratedly. "I like it when you get a little rough with me, sweetheart." Feeling greasy just listening to that, Jinyoung shoves him away, eyes aching from how hard he's rolling them and goes to get under the shower and wet his hair, grumbling under his breath about ridiculous fucking demons but he's not that bothered, especially since Jaebum's laughing with an stupidly wide grin on his stupid face and it might be stupidly adorable. He also doesn't push him away again when warm arms wrap around his waist from behind and he buries his face into the crook of Jinyoung's neck, still snickering to himself.

"You're an idiot." Jinyoung says, but it once again sounds more like a term of endearment than anything else.

Having actually cleaned themselves (and the wall of the shower), Jinyoung, dry and back in his clothes, drags Jaebum, who is currently just in a towel, back to his room (thank fuck they didn't run into any housemates) and immediately shoves a hoodie at him. He groans, rolling his eyes as he dries his hair off, towel around his waist falling at the same time as his image blurs. He's fully dressed when he refocuses, one eyebrow arched at the jumper Jinyoung wiggles in his direction.

"I'm not going to lose my clothes or anything in public, Jinyoungie, I've already said that." He says, sounding very unimpressed but well, that was only partially the reason.

"I know but it's cold. Put the jumper on." Jinyoung insists (it's absolutely not also about having Jaebum wearing his clothes again) and that seems to surprise him enough that he just takes it, looks between it and Jinyoung for a moment then pulls it over his head. If Jinyoung's eyes are not deceiving him, his cheeks are a little pink when he resurfaces and he cuddles into the soft material a bit, seems to be fighting down a smile; Jinyoung's heart flutters and the butterflies in his stomach seem to be making a bid for freedom but he ignores that for now, just smiling a little shyly at him as he goes to grab the masking charm paper and hand it over. He takes it gingerly, slipping it into his jeans pocket and Jinyoung nods, starts patting down his own pockets and collecting all the things he's missing (keys, phone, wallet; he wasn't that prepared) then quickly steps into some shoes.

"You good to go?" Jinyoung asks and Jaebum nods eagerly, beaming broadly and he practically bounces with excitement as they make their way downstairs, drawing an odd look from Yoongi as he slips past into the kitchen but thankfully he doesn't say anything and Jinyoung heaves a sigh, beckons Jaebum through towards the front door. Patting his pockets down and satisfied once again that he has keys, phone and wallet, Jinyoung pulls the door open, gestures for Jaebum to go outside. He does so with wide eyes and mouth, staring up at the sky in disbelief.

"What?" Jinyoung asks flatly, yanking the door shut behind him. Jaebum shakes his head, staring at the sky like he's never seen one before.

"It's just- blue." Jinyoung cocks an eyebrow.

"Well, yeah. It's the sky?" Jaebum's eyes cut over to him and he looks very unimpressed.

"Mine is orange, Jinyoungie." It takes a moment before that really registers, then Jinyoung blinks. Huh. That's weird. Jaebum snorts when he says as much. "Maybe yours is the weird one, sweetheart." He says this dismissively but he looks back up, what looks like genuine wonder passing over his face. Smiling to himself slightly (it's pretty cute how enamoured he is), Jinyoung shakes his head, heaves a sigh then grabs Jaebum's hand, drags him towards the path.

"Come on," he says, unnecessarily since Jaebum has no choice but to stumble after him, "you wanted a coffee date, you're getting a coffee date." Jinyoung blushes saying that but it's okay because Jaebum's face is also red when he manages to fall into step next to him, a sort of helpless smile tugging his lips up when Jinyoung interlocks their fingers together.

His gawking continues, wide eyes staring at everything from cars to houses to a small dog on the end of a lead; it barks at him for as long as it can see him, growling as they slip past the woman who seems very confused, ends up having to pick it up and carry it away with an embarrassed apology when it won't move, too busy making its displeasure very loudly known. Jaebum just shrugs sheepishly when Jinyoung turns alarmed and slightly suspicious eyes on him, seems genuinely confused too so Jinyoung lets it go, making a mental note to look up animal abilities to sense magic and to check whether his masking charm works on them.

"So where are we going?" Jaebum asks after a few moments' more walking, head cocked curiously.

"Just a café I like, they're nearby and they do good cakes." Jinyoung's stomach grumbles just thinking about them and then realises he's not eaten today. Jaebum looks impossibly even more excited, almost bouncing with each step and halfway dragging Jinyoung along behind him. "Hey- calm down, don't pull my arm off!" Jinyoung squawks, stumbling almost into him when he abruptly slows down with a laugh.

"Sorry." He says, sounding utterly unapologetic, but he does press a little closer to Jinyoung's side, a pleasant line of solid warmth even through Jinyoung's jacket, which is the only reason Jinyoung shifts closer too and wriggles an arm between Jaebum's and his side to keep him there. He seems equal parts flustered and pleased with this turn of events, crooking his arm so they're properly linked together but he's also fairly pink in the face when Jinyoung glances over and seems to be trying to look at Jinyoung without obviously turning his head or anything and he goes even pinker when Jinyoung catches him and raises an eyebrow. They walk in companionable silence for a few minutes, Jaebum still looking around somewhat wide-eyed at passers-by and windows with open curtains and people on bikes, then Jinyoung spies the sign for the café further down the road.

"We're crossing here." Jinyoung says, tugging on Jaebum's arm to get him to follow; he nods, following the jerk of Jinyoung's chin and goes to immediately step into the road. "No, don't!" Jinyoung yelps, yanking him back hard as a car, honking loudly, shoots past them; Jaebum squawks, stumbles backwards and almost falls on his ass, almost pulling Jinyoung over with him. "Don't just step out into the road idiot!" Jinyoung almost screeches.

"What- don't- how was I supposed to know that would happen! You just said to cross!" He hisses back, yanks his arm away, face bright red and he's clearly very embarrassed, which Jinyoung is absolutely not pettily pleased about (serves him right for nearly giving him a fucking heart attack). Jinyoung just shakes his head, jabbing the button and glaring at the walk light like it'll make it change faster. He grabs Jaebum's hand once it turns green, tugging on it and leading him across the road; he's very obviously sulking when Jinyoung glances back over his shoulder, the hand Jinyoung's not holding shoved into his hoodie pocket and lips pushed into a pout.

"Hey." Jinyoung says, nudging him with his elbow when they reach the other side of the road but he gets no response, Jaebum turning his face away in fact. Jinyoung sighs. "I'm sorry I snapped, you just scared me." He mumbles, flushing himself and all at once Jaebum stops sulking, grins and pokes Jinyoung's arm.

"You were worried about me." He says gleefully. Jinyoung just sighs again, willing to let him have that one (he's not wrong, after all), but thankfully they don't have to talk about that anymore since they're coming up on the café; Jinyoung points it out and Jaebum starts almost bouncing in excitement again, overtakes Jinyoung in fact and drags him along behind him. He stops short just outside though, looking back at Jinyoung as though for guidance, who just rolls his eyes and pushes the door open.

It's so much warmer inside, something in which Jinyoung is revelling as he leads Jaebum to the front counter. It's a nice café, all dark brown wood and pretty lampshades and cute little booths lining the far wall and, in what's Jinyoung's favourite part of this particular place, it's not very busy, seats always available regardless of what time one arrives. They also do some mean desserts, another big plus in Jinyoung's book. Jaebum's taking all of this in with wide eyes, though his mouth is thankfully not gaping open as it was when he'd seen the sky. It does fall open somewhat when Jinyoung tugs him over to the counter and he sees the various cakes and pastries and other assorted delicious foodstuffs but then Jinyoung's done that a few times in this place so he can be forgiven for this one.

"What would you like?" Jinyoung asks, smiling politely at the barista who waves at him; she's started recognising him, which is an embarrassing testament to how often he comes here. Jaebum doesn't reply immediately, just continues gawking at all the cakes so Jinyoung heaves a sigh and tugs him towards the cash register. "Could we get two hot chocolates and two slices of devil's food cake please?" The irony of the name is not lost on him. Neither is it lost on Jaebum, who snorts and has to look anywhere but at Jinyoung with his lips pressed together to stop himself laughing aloud.

"Sure thing, eat in or take away?" The barista asks brightly, tapping away on the cash register.

"Eat in, please." Jinyoung replies, handing over the money when she rattles off the price and grabbing Jaebum's hand to tug him away from where he's practically pushed his face against the glass between him and the cake display. He heads for a booth, gesturing Jaebum to sit down; he does so, still looking around with no small amount of awe, but he grins at Jinyoung when he plops down opposite him, nudging his shin with the toe of his shoe.

"It's a nice place, right?" Jinyoung says with a slightly smug grin and Jaebum nods, still looking around with a bright wondering smile; a warm accomplished feeling blooms in Jinyoung's chest and he folds his arms, satisfied.

It's only a couple of minutes before the barista bustles over and sets cake and hot chocolate in front of each of them along with some forks and Jinyoung, incredibly hungry as he is, just dives straight in and almost chokes himself on an oversized chunk of cake. Jaebum, being the considerate boyfriend (that's still such a weird and wonderful word to think) he is, burst into laughter at his spluttering, almost falling out of the booth entirely.

"Thanks for your concern." Jinyoung grumbles when he can breathe and speak again but Jaebum just grins and picks up his mug. He eyes the hot chocolate almost warily, cautiously taking a tiny sip around the whipped cream and it's Jinyoung's turn to snort when his eyes pop wide open and he stares down at it with no small amount of amazement. "Have you never had hot chocolate before?" Jinyoung asks and he shakes his head, eyes still bugging out of his head. "Do you like it?" Jinyoung bites his lip on an amused grin when his eyes snap up and he nods with a ridiculously broad smile, insides something of a fluttering mess because it's still constantly staggering how a literal fucking demon can be so goddamn adorable. It's not helped by his next move which is to literally stick half of his face into the cream to take his next swig and, as such, surfaces with one hell of a cream moustache; it takes a lot of willpower to not burst into laughter but Jinyoung is a rock and manages not to, just gestures vaguely at his own mouth. "You, uh, you have a little something just there." Jaebum blinks, looks very confused and licks his lips; it's decently effective but there's still a fair amount left on the left of his top lip.

"Where?" He asks when Jinyoung keeps gesturing.

"Here." Jinyoung taps his lip in the right place and he tries to get at it with his tongue but fails miserably to get most of it despite the amusing amount of concentration and effort he's clearly putting into this. "No it's-" Jinyoung gives up trying to explain and, internally screaming at himself because hello, cliché, leans over the table to wipe the last smudge from the corner of his mouth with his thumb. The cheesy overdone move is thankfully lost on Jaebum, who just wrinkles his nose at him as he wipes his hand on a napkin (he might actually spontaneously combust if he'd licked it off) and grumbles about not needing help. He notably doesn't immerse as much of his face into the whipped cream when he goes to take another sip though, glowering at the knowing raise of Jinyoung's eyebrows. Jinyoung looks down with an amused shake of his head, smiling as he spears the next chunk of his cake.

"Jinyoung," Jaebum says quietly, almost hesitantly, keeps his eyes on his cup when Jinyoung looks up questioningly with a light flush painting his cheeks, "just- thanks for bringing me here." The blush gets a little darker and Jinyoung can't help smiling, stomach twisting itself into a little happy knot.

"No problem," Jinyoung murmurs, looking down at his own coffee, "thanks for coming with me." Jaebum nods with a small smile and they both go to sneak a glance at each other at the same time and burst into slightly nervous laughter, then Jaebum reaches over, takes Jinyoung's hand and just holds it, squeezing his fingers gently and rubbing circles onto the back of it with his thumb and Jinyoung, smiling wide enough that his cheeks start to hurt, can't help but feel he could get used to this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first of all i'm so sorry it has taken me so long to update, I've just been super busy with lab reports and revision for my exams in January so this has been on the back burner a bit ^^; the next update may be somewhat slow too, so please have patience with me!! i'll try and update before the new year but I can't promise anything I'm afraid  
> that being said thank you all so much for waiting for this chapter (I hope its length helps make up for the wait) and for reading and all your support in general!! I love all of u <3  
> as always if u have anything to say hmu here or on my [tumblr](http://jbibbles.tumblr.com/)


	10. Another perspective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song for this chapter is [shame - kngdavd](https://youtu.be/dwZGWm51sRk) which is dope and I wish kngdavd had more than like four songs out rip

Jaebum screws his eyes shut, raises a hand to shield them from the glare when he opens them gingerly; it must be midday, the sun high overhead in a clear amber sky, not a cloud to be seen anywhere. As per usual then. Heaving a sigh, he blinks quickly, brushes non-existent dust off his shirt and heads out of the alley he'd retreated to as soon as Jinyoung's invitation had buzzed in his head with his chin high as though it's perfectly normal to just emerge from alleys having not gone into them any time recently. Though to be fair, it's not that uncommon an occurrence in Arisk.

As it tends to be at midday, the street - one of the main boulevards through the city in fact, the westernmost of three - is pretty packed, Jaebum having to be less than gentle with his elbows to even get into the flow of people. It's so loud too, the air full of chatter and the cries of vendors on each of the stalls lining the centre of the massive street, hawking all manner of things from jewellery and trinkets to poisons and concealable weapons. Perfect for any dinner party or courtly ball.

Walking down the boulevard, Jaebum can't help wondering what Jinyoung would think of it if he were here, if he'd like the crowds and the noise, the long-worn cobbles and the sun-drenched streets. His plane is mostly quiet and it always seems to be cold, though that's apparently something that changes with time. That's a weird concept to grasp too, that the weather where he lives isn't always the same thing, interspersed with occasional dramatic and short-lived changes like when it decides to violently storm here, but apparently that's just the norm there.

As it always does, just thinking about Jinyoung is enough to make his heart kick up a notch, a small smile coming unbidden to his face as the now familiar warm feeling blossoms in his chest. It's getting a touch ridiculous actually just how much Jinyoung affects even when they aren't even on the same plane, but then Jinyoung's the one very much breaking the law just so Jaebum doesn't have to have a few moments of nausea when he crosses over so maybe they're both a little bit ridiculous. He gets a couple of odd looks, eyebrows raised as he smiles to himself but he's never really cared about that anyway and now barely even registers the extra attention, distracted as he is.

He does however register when someone full on walks into him, almost sending him sprawling to the ground.

"Look where you're fucking going." Is growled at him over the wrath demon's shoulder - and they're definitely a wrath demon, huge and imposing a figure as they are - but Jaebum only realises that he does actually understand what they said too late to snap back, so settles for just sneering at them, turning his glare on a woman, some minor demon of something he doesn't really care about, who's giggling at him. She shuts up soon enough, looks a little cowed and Jaebum would feel bad about scaring her but then she was laughing at him. So he's unused to the plane right now, he's not used to the bustle of the city or actually processing speech in Infernal, it's not that surprising. He has spent the better part of a month living in the material plane - material plane time that is, about two weeks here but he's finding he's losing track of time here much more easily nowadays - barely coming back here every other day and no one even knows Infernal over there. Or no one Jaebum's aware of anyway.

Jaebum follows the flow of the crowd for a while, content to wander and vaguely look over the market's goods, but he then spots something that has him squeezing out of the stream and stumbling into one of the large shops lining the boulevard, glancing up at the sign swinging slightly in what little breeze there is: Emporium Magicka. All too familiar with the contents of this particular shop, he barely looks over the shelves of assorted spell components from berries and twigs to pickled eyeballs and tiny indistinguishable organs in sealed glass jars.

"Hello?" He calls. He gets no immediate response but that's not hugely surprising. To waste a little time, he heads to the counter, idly examining pots of rough crystal and the gently smoking flasks and bubbling alembic he can see through the door leading to the back rooms. Turning around, he leans against the worn dark wood, wrinkling his nose at the faint smell of sulphur bleeding through from the back and watches the crowds bleed past outside. Jinyoung might not like the crowds and the markets, but he'd definitely like this place - it is right up his particular magical street after all.

"Jaebum!" Is the only warning he gets before he's very nearly bowled to the floor, Nayeon squeezing all the air from his lungs and almost lifting him off his feet. "It's been so long!" Flailing only a little bit, Jaebum pats her on the back with the one hand that isn't pinned to his side, looking over at Chaeyoung who's standing in the back room doorway grinning with wide slightly pleading eyes but she's holding back laughter as she just raises her hands helplessly.

"It's been barely two days Nayeon," he manages to wheeze, "please stop crushing me." She does, very briefly, before she's grabbing him around the waist this time and properly picking him up to carry him over her shoulder into the back room, ignoring his indignant squawks and attempts to kick her to get her to let go. Chaeyoung almost falls over herself cackling but manages to stumble after them, hopping up on the counter next to the alembic as Nayeon deposits Jaebum on a stool. She very nearly misses too, he has to grab onto it and the counter and hang on for dear life to avoid sprawling straight to the floor, but she seems none the wiser, just beams at him and pulls up another stool.

"How's the boyfriend?" Nayeon stage-whispers, chin resting on her cupped hands with her elbows on the countertop. Unable to help wincing a little - it's not exactly something he wants spread around, regardless of how insistent the pair are that their place is entirely charmed so no sound can get out - Jaebum shrugs, leaning back against the counter carefully, eyeing one of the flasks next to him warily. He's also unable to stop himself from smiling though, something which gets him a knowing look from Chaeyoung to which he just wrinkles his nose.

"He's fine." He says simply, earning twin groans and a flick on his shoulder from Chaeyoung.

"How is he though?" Nayeon insists, glaring rather ineffectively at him - she just looks like a grumpy puppy - and Jaebum just shrugs, biting back an amused grin.

"He's fine." He repeats, getting a smack to the back of his head this time, Chaeyoung's eyes flickering a dangerous yellow as they narrow mostly playfully. He raises both hands in surrender. "What do you want me to say?" Nayeon groans.

"What did you guys do? Did you go on another date?" She says this with a hushed, almost reverent tone and Chaeyoung gets a familiar wistful look in her eyes, padding over next to Nayeon to hesitantly take her hand. Jaebum smiles a little sadly, a little bit of guilt coiling in his stomach over telling them about this when they so clearly desperately wish they could do this too, but then they do keep asking and that's the only reason he told them at all. Well, that and they're his best friends.

"We did, yeah." He says quietly and Chaeyoung's wistfulness gets even more pronounced but Nayeon's eyes light up and she all but bounces in her seat.

"What did you do? Was it fun? Did you- did you hold his hand outside and everything?" She rattles off far too quickly, free hand clapped to her cheek. Chaeyoung shakes her head fondly, staring down at their linked hands with a tiny smile. Her enthusiasm is rather infectious however - Jaebum finds he's smiling too as he nods.

"We, um, went... Uh-" he frowns, trying to remember what Jinyoung had called it- "ice-skating? I think it's called ice-skating. And yeah, it was really fun." Both of them just look at him blankly; he'd had the same reaction when Jinyoung proposed it but he'd looked so adorably excited that Jaebum had just agreed before even asking what it was. "Well in his plane, where he is anyway, it gets cold enough that lakes can freeze. And humans, for whatever reason-" he genuinely doesn't understand how some of their thoughts come about- "thought strapping these metal blade things to their shoes and trying to balance on them and move about on the ice was a good idea." Chaeyoung still looks baffled but Nayeon's eyes have gotten wider and more sparkly with each word.

"You mean you slid about on a frozen lake?" She all but screeches. Jaebum shrugs and nods; it technically was a man-made thing but close enough. It was pretty weird, but Jinyoung had loved it and it had actually turned out to be pretty fun.

"Did you fall over?" Chaeyoung asks with a growing gleeful grin. Wincing internally, Jaebum stays silent and she bursts out laughing.

"It was slippery, alright?" He bristles slightly, adjusting his glamour slightly so they can't tell he's blushing a little. "And Jinyoung fell over too, I had to hold him up." More than him even. It was remarkable that he had any fun at all with how many times he wiped out but he was laughing pretty much the whole time they were skating, especially that one time he fell over and somehow knocked Jaebum's legs out from underneath him so they ended up in a heap right in the middle of the ice. Chaeyoung's still laughing though and Nayeon's hiding a grin behind her hand.

"Yeah but he's a human," Chaeyoung says reasonably when she can speak again, "you're a demon. We're supposed to have good reflexes." Both she and Jaebum automatically glance over at Nayeon, who looks confused for a moment then yelps indignantly.

"Hey! I'm not that clumsy!" And of course, as she gestures in frustration, she knocks one of the flasks on the counter over, the murky brown-grey contents hissing menacingly as they come into contact with the wood. Having had similarly unpleasant-looking things spilled on him by Nayeon in the past, Jaebum all but falls off his stool in his haste to scramble away from it, practically leaping the width of the room to hover cautiously in the doorway. Chaeyoung's head drops into her hands as Nayeon yelps again, jumps to her feet to sprint the length of the room and grab a bottle from one of the shelves. She uncorks it as she sprints back and quickly dumps the contents over the spilled liquid, breathing a sigh of relief when it stops smoking and turns white, congealing into lumps that Chaeyoung wipes into a tray with a half-charred cloth.

"What was that?" Jaebum asks, spluttering a little when the smell of it hits him; it's vile, a mixture of thick smoke and something rotten. Neither Nayeon nor Chaeyoung seem particularly phased by the stench but then they probably deal with similar smelling things fairly often.

"It was going to be an antidote to a rare snake venom." Chaeyoung says pointedly, eyebrows climbing towards her hair. Nayeon shrinks a little, mumbles an apology as she rubs the back of her neck sheepishly. Heaving a long-suffering sigh, Chaeyoung nudges her side, takes the tray over to one of the sinks and dumps it into it. "It'll be fine, Yeonnie, we can just make some more." Nayeon nods glumly, plops back onto her stool.

"You can come sit down now." She says despondently. Jaebum cautiously crosses the room, eyeing the dark stain suspiciously.

"I think I'll just leave you to it." Her head pops back up and she pouts sadly.

"It's really fine though, see!" Nayeon pats the countertop, wiggles her uninjured fingers and stares at Jaebum with wide pleading eyes but he shakes his head.

"I've got to go check in at home now anyway, but I'll try and come see you again soon." He says with a small smile, ruffling Nayeon's hair when she frowns down at her hands and he winks at Chaeyoung, who's washing her hands but staring at Nayeon with an incredibly soft smile. She shoots him a glare out of the corner of her eye but wipes it from her face when Nayeon looks suspiciously at her, blinking innocently at her.

"Fine," she grumbles when she's done glowering at Chaeyoung, "see you later, Jaebum." She bounds over to hug him, only marginally less tightly than when he arrived. Chaeyoung waves at him when he's released and he waves back as he heads for the door, taking a deep breath before plunging into the crowd. Thankfully the Rose Palace - a very overdramatic name for what amounts to a glorified brothel - is a pretty popular destination - even all the way over in the markets, about a half-hour walk away - so Jaebum manages to fall into step with a stream of people heading towards it.

A couple of people seem to recognise him when they're a few minutes out, eyeing him up somewhat and grinning expectantly; he smiles slightly back, letting them interpret that however they want. Of course, they interpret it positively and that unconscious and constantly hungry part of his head latches onto them; he's sure his eyes have ticked over from black to yellow, but he ignores it, utterly uninterested. Which is still a mind-set he forgets he has sometimes as it's still a pretty odd feeling. Not a bad one though.

The gilded building - it is pretty big, but it's hardly a palace - comes into view, the ornate archway over the ebony double doors which currently stand open but flanked either side by guards who ultimately amount to bouncers glinting in the amber sunlight. Jaebum sidles out of the crowd, heads down an alleyway to the right of the building. Rivi is leant up against the side entrance, studying their nails; they look up when Jaebum approaches, eyes glittering white as they peer through his glamour, then stands aside with a nod to let him pass. He smiles sweetly at them, throwing them a wink when one eyebrow quirks, but they just shake their head, unimpressed, though there is now a tiny smile quirking their lips up. It is always fun to try and get a reaction out of them, stoic boulder that they are.

Jaebum strolls through the mess of corridors, ears pricking up at every little peal of laughter and unrestrained moan, eyes automatically darkening to red at the sheer amount of arousal and pleasure bursting from practically every room but he again ignores it, content to head upstairs to his own room alone and pass out for the next few hours - ice-skating takes a lot of effort, especially considering he ended up supporting Jinyoung as well as trying to keep himself upright for a considerable portion of it.

He comes out into what they've taken to referring to as the main foyer, even though it's basically just a large open room with a whole load of mismatched sofas in haphazard rectangles with several doors leading deeper into the maze of the building. It is the room with the main stairs in though, all dark wood railings and deep red carpets embroidered with black and gold that splits in two after a short stretch upwards, leading around and merging in and out in loose loops all the way up to the third floor.

A lot of the sofas are occupied, both by succubi and various others, some clearly waiting for someone specific, others just chatting and laughing and lounging about, but Jaebum's eye is unfortunately drawn to a group to the left of the staircase; Leucis and his usual posse of sycophants are draped over various low-slung couches, all of them hanging on his every word as though he actually had something interesting to say - he doesn't, he never does - and he waves over at Jaebum, a wicked smile curving his violet lips up.

"Where in the planes have you been, Jaebum?" He asks, sounding almost concerned, head cocked and wine glass dangling from one hand, ice crackling around his fingers. "Illuria's been looking for you, you know. She's been very adamant that you come speak to her at your earliest convenience." His smile turns playful, like he knows something Jaebum doesn't.

"Where is she?" Jaebum asks briskly, bypassing his first question entirely. He gestures with the glass, over towards the main set of stairs exactly as some high-up wrath demon Jaebum vaguely recognises from the last coup swaggers down, nose in the air and cloak trailing behind her. Jaebum fights back an eye-roll.

"I think she's just finished eating." Leucis says amusedly, everyone surrounding him almost swooning at his tinkling laugh.

"Right." Jaebum mutters, running a hand through his hair and heading for the staircase. Illuria, their self-proclaimed matriarch - he swears she's actually a fucking pride demon - has the largest set of rooms on the top floor, of course. She also doesn't like him. It has something to do with the fact that she's a good three centuries older than him but he was still Queen Anaia's favourite despite considerable effort on her part; she's never forgiven him for that. He in turn has never forgiven her for helping Lerissa orchestrate Anaia's assassination, so their relationship is already built on mutual hatred, which means this conversation should be delightful. Heaving a sigh, he heads up the three flights of stairs, fingertips trailing along the ebony banister and shaking his head amusedly at the shrieks of laughter coming from somewhere on the first floor.

Illuria's door is open when Jaebum reaches the top of the stairs. He knocks on the door frame, strides inside anyway; he doesn't really care about being polite to her. She's not anywhere immediately visible anyway, her barely used sitting room pristine and neat, a stark contrast to the state of one of her bedrooms Jaebum can see through another open door, bedcovers mostly pulled out of place and clothes strewn across the floor.

"So you're finally back," comes a lilting voice from behind him; he turns to see Illuria stepping out of one of her many bathrooms, completely naked and dripping wet with her dry hair pinned up in a messy bun, "we haven't been seeing too much of you these days, little one, we've all been wondering where you vanish to." Her eyes, piercing blue, narrow just fractionally. Jaebum smiles vaguely, internally screaming just a little bit and also fuming at the demeaning fucking pet name she refuses to fucking drop specifically because he doesn't like it or her.

"I've been busy." He says stiffly; she hums, arching a perfect eyebrow as she steps over to one of the oversized wardrobes.

"Busy, hm?" She murmurs as she pulls out a towel and starts to dry herself off. Jaebum doesn't even bother to respond to that. "You were summoned very often for a while, then you start disappearing for hours despite not being summoned," Illuria says, almost amiably as she pats the back of her neck dry but there's a core of ice to it that has goose bumps prickling up Jaebum's arms, "and you're always so evasive when any of us ask you about it. It's almost like you're hiding something, little one." Her eyes narrow, ice-blue and freezing and Jaebum swears he feels the room grow colder. "Where have you been?" She pulls the pins from her bun, platinum blonde curls tumbling onto her shoulders. Jaebum just lifts a shoulder half-heartedly, smiling vaguely but cursing out his stupid inability to lie; wrath and pride demons don't have such a stupid compulsion, why do succubi have it? "Now little one, I don't want to have to do this-" she says that but she's clearly biting back a grin and there's an unpleasantly sadistic sparkle to her soulless eyes- "but if you don't start answering my questions, I'm going to have to force you to." Jaebum barks a laugh.

"You'll force me? What is this, a summoning? I don't have to tell you anything," he snaps, bristling, "you might think of yourself as head of this 'household', but you're the only one who thinks that." That may end up being a mistake on his part, but damn if he hasn't wanted to say that for the last hundred years. The smile finally slips off her face, lips twisting into an ugly sneer as she draws herself up and a shockwave shudders through him when she speaks again; she says his name. His true name. He feels sick hearing it come out of her mouth, jarring and hideous and his skin starts crawling; this is wrong, unnatural even. Demons shouldn't even know each other's names, let alone use them and now there's an awful ache at the back of his head, a throbbing pressure that just gets worse as she continues.

"You will answer my questions. Where have you been going?" She demands with a wicked grin; she's clearly loving this. The pressure gets heavier and Jaebum finds himself speaking, exactly like the compulsion he felt when Jinyoung used to summon him and it's so wrong to have that here, where he should be safe from all that bullshit.

"The material plane." He tries to keep it as short as possible, horror making his hands shake; they aren't supposed to do this to each other, what the hell is she thinking? "How did you-" She says it again and his stomach twists, a sick feeling bubbling through him and he goes to stumble backwards, flee the room but her voice cuts through him again.

"You will stand there and you will answer my questions and only my questions until I say otherwise." She says icily and it feels like Jaebum's tongue has glued itself to the roof of his mouth, throat closing when he tries to protest and he can't fucking move. He has to settle for just staring at her like she's gone mad; she has gone mad, this is fucking insane. They're supposed to be better than this, true names are for humans, for summoners and their bindings and commands and punishments, they're supposed to be above this. "Who has been letting you into the material plane?" She barks.

"A man." Her eyes narrow.

"What's his name?" Shit.

"Jinyoung." Jaebum snaps, very unwillingly but well, it's not like he has a choice. It doesn't help the liquid fear settling in his stomach; if Illuria is mad enough to find his true name, he's not going to put figuring out a way to hurt Jinyoung past her.

"Why does he bring you through?" She asks, sounding almost bored by this part. Jaebum swallows down his fury as best he can.

"To see him." He tries to keep it as short as he can but she just cocks a perfectly shaped eyebrow, folds her arms.

"You're fucking him?" She asks, looking amused.

"Yes." He says flatly. She hums, unfolds her arms and runs a hand through her hair, turns to one of the countless mirrors in here to fluff it up.

"This boy-" Jaebum bites his tongue to stop himself snapping at her dismissiveness, then remembers he can't fucking speak anyway- "does he care for you?" Jaebum's fists clench.

"Yes." He hisses reluctantly, scowling at her slight laugh.

"Is he in love with you?" She narrows her eyes appraisingly at Jaebum through the mirror, as though considering some lengthy plan in her head.

"I don't know." Jaebum snaps, glaring at her as darkly as he possibly can; he doesn't, Jinyoung's not told him so, he just hopes he is. She hums, eyeing him contemplatively, then freezes, eyes widening and she whirls around, stares at Jaebum like she's never seen him before.

"You-" she stops, breath rushing out of her, then says his name again and it's just as unpleasant as every other fucking time, skin crawling and that awful compulsion pounding at the back of his head- "are you in love with him?" She asks very slowly. Jaebum's stomach drops through the floor.

"Yes." He finds himself breathing, hating this and hating her and hating that he had to tell her before he could tell Jinyoung and her face goes slack with shock, then twists in disgust, recoils away from him like he's carrying some infectious disease and despite expecting it and hell, actually hating her, it still hurts, it's still humiliating and he still wishes he could disappear when she shakes her head with a sneer.

"Pathetic." She spits, the temperature of the room plummeting as mist starts to rise from her skin, remaining water droplets freezing and falling to the ground with tinkling chimes as she shakes her head and pulls her hair to lie over one shoulder. "You are an embarrassment to all of us." Her form starts to flicker. Jaebum's breath steams in the air in front of him, cold feeling like it's seeping into his bones as he just stares at her, eyes painfully wide. "You will end things with this boy, I will not allow you to- to brand us with this- this idiocy!" Jaebum's hands are shaking; he clenches his fists to try and stop it but it doesn't help with the void that's opening in his chest and dragging his breath away.

"If I don't?" He manages to force past the block in his throat; Illuria sneers, pale skin cracking like the ice at the edges of the rink Jinyoung had taken him to, all colour leaving her eyes to turn them white and seemingly unseeing. Mist starts to wreathe her head, a freezing mockery of a halo, and coalesce into vague wing-like shapes behind her shoulders.

"You finish with this boy or you will find this place and the whole of Arisk very unwelcoming to you." Her voice sounds strange, echoing slightly and far deeper than before and it makes the utter madness of her words even more chilling. Yes, most succubi are not so much interested in relationships to the point that yes, they actively dislike them and they'd look at him like he was insane if he said he was in one, but not to this extent, not to the point of kicking someone out of an entire city.

"You- you can't do that." He stutters through chattering teeth, shivering in the now freezing room but she just grins, teeth too numerous and far too sharp.

"I think you'll find I can and, more importantly, I will. Your- I will not let you tarnish us with your sentimentality-" she spits it, a growl at the back of her throat- "you end this madness or I will have you exiled." Jaebum's breath leaves him and he struggles to pull in another, black spots swimming at the edges of his vision. At what has to be the worst possible time, he feels a tug at the back of his head, a wordless invitation beckoning him to step through to Jinyoung's plane, unexpected and far too early - Jinyoung said he'd summon him tomorrow, but it can't have been more than a few hours. The only way it could be worse was if Illuria could tell this is happening but thankfully she can't, has just turned her nose up, won't even look at him now, just stares over his head with narrowed eyes. "If you do not end things and tell me by this time tomorrow, I will take this to the king and you will never be welcome in Arisk again." Her lip curls and she jerks her chin at the door. "Now get the fuck out of my sight." Jaebum stumbles backwards like he's been shoved but he didn't need the extra encouragement; he all but runs out of the room, tries to look as nonchalant as possible as he leaves while still fleeing the building as quickly as he can, that invitation in his head burning cold like ice and there's an awful ache in his chest, right about where his heart is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again I'm really sorry this took so long, I have exams next week so revision is obviously my priority atm, but I should be good to write more frequently once they're done on the 10th, so pls be patient with me!! thanks guys  
> that being said............. come yell at me in the comments or on tumblr, tho i won't be on tumblr until post exams... rip  
> thanks for reading!!


	11. (Please don't let it be) the end

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> song for this final chapter of this part is [hold me tight or don't - fall out boy](https://youtu.be/jG1JY0rt2Os) bc d a m n what a song

Jinyoung is once again having a terrible fucking day. It had started off fine, having sent Jaebum back to his plane relatively early so he could get his shit together in time to make it into his nine o'clock start but then it had rained absolutely torrentially halfway between home and campus, so he'd turned up drenched and had to sit through three lectures in soaking clothes. He'd then headed to the library to try and get some dissertation written up before his seminars later in the afternoon, but as soon as he'd sat down the fire alarm had gone off and they'd all had to go outside and stand in the rain while the building was checked over; turns out some moron had walked into the library still smoking and it had set the alarms off, but by the time it all got sorted Jinyoung had had to leave for his seminar. He'd gone to the MS building's write up room after that and had actually managed to get some stuff written up but still, summary of the day was overall awful and, well, Jinyoung wants nothing more than to flop into bed with his boyfriend and fall asleep to him stroking his hair or something equally mushy so despite his earlier words saying he wasn't going to be able to see him again today, he's going to do exactly that as soon as he gets in. Thankfully it's not raining right now, though it does look like it's about to, so Jinyoung walks home as briskly as he can, smiling politely as he passes a couple of people he vaguely recognises from the magical studies department while hoping to all hell none of them want to actually speak to him.

He almost cheers when he makes it off campus without any conversations, actually sighing aloud when he reaches his house; he digs around for his keys at the bottom of his bag, eventually finding them (that would have just topped off a shitty day, losing his keys) and unlocking the door. Music is audible from Yoongi's room as per usual and there's noise from the kitchen but Jinyoung just scoots past as quietly as he can, not even wanting to make small talk with his flatmates right now and trudges up the stairs, unlocks his door and drops his bag with a heavy sigh. At least it's Friday, he doesn't have to get up tomorrow morning. He can see if Jaebum's willing to spend tomorrow with him too; it still has his stomach doing backflips to wake up next to him.

Still, he needs Jaebum to _be_ here for Jinyoung to ask him if he wants to stay, so he heads to his desk, grabs a chalk and scrawls out the runes, wiping away old smudges he hadn't cleaned properly this morning then he murmurs the chant, touches the wall and watches the runes spark; his ears pop as the gate opens, crackling with energy. Much more relaxed about them by now, he's content to shuffle about in his room and put away textbooks and sort lecture notes with it open, not needing to stare at it unblinking any more.

But then he finishes sorting stuff and Jaebum's still not here, the gate still standing open and Jinyoung feels unease prickle up his spine. He frowns at it, peers at the runes but they're all there, all correct (he's more than memorised them by now), so there's no reason that Jaebum _couldn't_ come through, but that doesn't change the fact that he _hasn't_. It's been almost ten minutes in fact, that arbitrary length of time Jinyoung set himself to keep the gate open. He doesn't really want to close it just yet though, maybe Jaebum's just busy or excusing himself from somewhere or something. He'll give it another five minutes.

Five minutes passes and still no Jaebum. Chewing on his nails, Jinyoung paces up and down his room; what should he do? Well, he knows what he should do, he should close it and try again later, he did tell Jaebum he wouldn't call him back again today so maybe he's actually busy. Or, a traitorous part of Jinyoung's head whispers, maybe he's hurt, another coup maybe. Maybe he's stuck somewhere or can't even pull himself through the gate, maybe he'll never come back again. Jinyoung smacks himself lightly in the face, scolding his own brain. Jaebum's fine, he must be. He's overthinking this, regardless of the fact that Jaebum's never not come through before, taken nine minutes of the ten to arrive at the most.

Twenty minutes since he opened the gate and Jinyoung, hands shaking, steps over to the runes, slowly speaks the closing script (it won't close until he's done after all), then wipes a hand through the runes. They fizzle out, leaving nothing but smeared chalk on the wall. Heart pounding in his chest, Jinyoung just stares at it for a few minutes, trying to fight down cold fear and rationalise this; he's busy. Just busy. Jinyoung gets busy too, he's not called Jaebum for a couple of days before. Jaebum's just busy. Stop panicking.

Mind not reassured in the least but panicking a little more quietly, Jinyoung heads downstairs for his laptop and jogs back up, plops into his desk chair and determinedly opens it; this is fine, it just means he can do some work, write up some of the last of his dissertation. He'll try again later, see if Jaebum's no longer busy and ask him if everything's okay then. He'll definitely come through next time. Definitely.

Working goes about as well as it can when one is slightly obsessing over the thought of one's boyfriend maybe being stuck in a coup or something like that, in that it doesn't at all; Jinyoung ends up deleting more than he'd even typed, closes the document without even saving it so his word count doesn't actually go down then snaps his laptop back shut, head dropping into his hands. He shouldn't open a gate again so soon, not when Jaebum's probably still busy (he is just busy, he is), but he's actually genuinely scared so if Jaebum tells him off later for being annoying he'll take that, that's fine. He bounces back to his feet, quickly runs his tech downstairs again then cleans the wall off with his sleeve and grabs another chalk, scrawls the design back out as carefully as he can with his shaking hands. It's probably the most perfect design he's ever written in fact but he doesn't have the wherewithal to appreciate it, just speaks through the script and winces when his ears pop again and waits.

This time he doesn't have to wait very long; Jaebum appears with a dull rush of air almost immediately, sat on the edge of Jinyoung's bed with his head bowed and his hands clasped in his lap. Jinyoung jumps when he arrives, hands still shaking as he closes the gate again and turns to face him.

"Hi." He squeaks. Jaebum lifts his head slightly but doesn't look Jinyoung in the eye, keeps his eyes somewhere just past his middle. He looks... Odd. His expression is blank, but looks forcedly so and his shoulders are tight, back rigid. "Are you alright?" Jinyoung asks tentatively. Jaebum opens his mouth but nothing comes out and he looks down again, fingertips digging into the backs of his hands. So he's not. "What- what's wrong?" Jinyoung asks haltingly. Jaebum is utterly motionless for a good few seconds, then his head drops into his hands.

"We need to break up." He says quietly, voice trembling. It's like the ground has dropped away from beneath Jinyoung's feet, stomach plummeting and his knees feel like jelly but he can't move to sit down, utterly frozen in place.

"Wh-what?" He asks numbly, but Jaebum doesn't look up. "Jaebum, what are you- why? Where is this coming from?" Jinyoung wracks his brain desperately to try and find any sign of it, of Jaebum considering this but there aren’t any, not that Jinyoung can see; they've been, well, happy. They've been happy together, having fun and being happy.

"We just- have to. I have to." He says haltingly and Jinyoung feels like he's been punched in the stomach because Jaebum’s _crying_. He's actually crying and doesn't even seem to have noticed, lifting his head to look up at Jinyoung with tears tracking down his cheeks. Jinyoung's heart lurches even as his shaking fingers twist into fists.

"You can't- you can't just say that, why? Why do we have to?" Jinyoung asks desperately, voice shaking with his own unshed tears. Jaebum just shakes his head, eyes dropping to the floor again. "Have I- did I do something? If I've done something wrong just tell me, I can- we can fix it-" Jaebum looks positively horrified now, quickly shaking his head and staring back up at him beseechingly.

"No, no Jinyoung you haven't- you haven't. But I- we can't, we can't do this anymore." A tear drips off his chin onto his hand and he jumps, looking down at it in disbelief; he cautiously touches his face, eyes popping wide open as he stares at his wet fingers as though he's never seen tears before, then he flushes bright red, wiping at his face, clearly embarrassed.

"Why? What- what happened?" Jinyoung stutters but Jaebum again doesn't answer and an awful thought spears through Jinyoung's head; has he been told to do this? Succubi don't like romantic relationships; if his peers on the other plane found out, would they make him do this? "Do you want to?" Jinyoung breathes; Jaebum doesn't say anything, looking back down at the floor and pressing his lips into a thin line. "Jaebum, do you want to?" He repeats but there's still no answer, just more tears dripping onto the wooden floor. Jinyoung's fists clench; this is fucking ridiculous. "Jaebum, look at me-" he snaps it hard enough that he just obeys automatically, eyes wide- "do you want to break up with me?" Silence for a long moment, then something crumples in Jaebum's expression and he looks away again, squeezing his eyes shut.

"No." His voice cracks, fresh tears falling from his eyes and hands twisting in the duvet.

"Then why?" Jinyoung's voice cracks too but he just manages to hold back from crying himself. Jaebum scrubs an arm over his face, anger bleeding through now.

"Because I have to! If I don't-" he stops, takes a deep breath, is no longer shouting when he continues- "If I don't, I'll- I'll be exiled." Jinyoung's abruptly lightheaded, wobbling in place before he sits heavily in his desk chair.

"What?" Jaebum's head drops into his hands but his voice is remarkably steady when he continues.

"I'll be exiled. Our- the leader of the succubi in Arisk said she'd have me kicked out of the city but- but I don't know if she really can, not if I kept my head down but- but I'd be unwelcome. With them. I'd lose my home and-" Jaebum breathes a mirthless laugh- "and what amounts to my family." He rubs his eyes, heaving a long sigh and Jinyoung's teeth start chattering with how hard he's suddenly shivering. “She gave me until tomorrow to tell her what I’m going to do. If I don’t break up with you-” he shakes his head, shoulders lifting in a half-hearted shrug- "I have to- to choose and I don't- I don't know what to do." Jaebum mumbles into his hands, shaking all over. Jinyoung stares unseeingly at the floor, guilt pulsing through him with every thump of his heart. It hurts, like it's actually in pieces rather than just metaphorically.

"But- they're your- your family, why-" He tails off, not wanting to ask the full question; why would he choose Jinyoung over them? Jaebum's silent for a painful few seconds, then lifts his head, throat bobbing with a gulp.

"They're not- I'm not- not actually related to any of them," he explains weakly but that's not really the point; Jinyoung's about to protest but Jaebum just shakes his head slightly, scrubbing his face with both hands, "and it's- I don't want to- to stop seeing you b-because-" his voice gives out and he squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them, looks over at Jinyoung sadly, tears still clinging to his eyelashes- "because I'm in love with you." Jinyoung's tears spill over, all the air rushing from his lungs at once and he struggles to breathe back in. Jaebum just watches him silently and he looks positively terrified, terrified and uncertain and resigned and it makes Jinyoung feel like someone's trying to pull all the cracked pieces of his heart apart, a sharp ache resounding in his chest; this is all so _unfair_.

"I love you too." Jinyoung croaks as soon as he's physically able and Jaebum jolts, actually looks surprised as if there was any fucking doubt about that at all. Really, it’s not like it’s fucking obvious or anything.

"You- do?" He asks, tiny and unsure and Jinyoung can't help laughing.

"Of course I do, you idiot!" He sniffles, wiping his eyes on his arm. Jaebum looks stunned for a moment, then breaks into an utterly breath-taking smile, breathing a wet laugh even as it makes Jinyoung cry harder; he gives up on his face, gets up and crosses the room to plop onto the bed and goes to hug him but stops himself, not sure if he'd really want to at the moment. "Can I- hug you? I-" He asks haltingly, hands fluttering awkwardly between them and the irony of the reversal is not lost on him, nor on Jaebum if his continued laughter (only slightly hysterical) is any indication, but he nods and Jinyoung grabs him, winding an arm around his waist and the other hand cupping the back of his head, combing gently through his hair. He's shaking all over but he hugs Jinyoung back tightly, burying his face into the crook of his neck. Lips pressing to the top of his head, Jinyoung rocks them side to side slightly, struggling to get his own tears under control but eventually they stop and Jaebum's trembling slows down, breathing slowing and evening but he doesn't let go and neither does Jinyoung. He wonders if Jaebum's thinking about the same things as him, if this is going to be the last time he gets to do this, to hold him like this. It has an awful gap opening up in his chest, not painful yet but it definitely will be.

Jaebum eventually shifts despite Jinyoung wishing he never would, pulling back a little to wipe his eyes off on his arm; Jinyoung can feel the damp patch on his shirt now it can move, heart squeezing painfully when Jaebum meets his eyes briefly and looks away, chewing on the inside of his cheek.

"I'm sorry." He mumbles and Jinyoung's heart breaks all over again; he shakes his head quickly, wiping under his eyes with the back of his hand.

"No this, this isn't your fault-" he smiles weakly when Jaebum risks another glance up, guilt and sorrow written across his face- "it really isn't." He doesn't seem convinced but nods slightly, chin dropping to his chest.

“This would be so much easier if I could lie, huh?” He mumbles and it surprises a laugh out of Jinyoung, short and wet but genuine; he smiles weakly too, nudges Jinyoung’s shoulder with his own then sighing again. "What should I do?" He asks quietly, staring down at his hands again. Heart aching, Jinyoung shakes his head, even though everything in him wants to just yell at him not to leave.

"I can't- I can't tell you what to do here, Jaebum, I can't, this is- it's too big-" Jinyoung looks down too, more tears prickling at the back of his throat- "but I- whatever you want to do is okay. Whatever you need to do, I'll-" he pauses, takes a deep breath- "I'll do what you want me to do. Whatever that is." Jaebum nods, staying silent for a moment before taking a deep shaky breath.

"I- I don't know. I- have a bit of time to- to think about it, she- Illuria-" he all but spits the name Jinyoung doesn't recognise, strumming with silent fury- "wants an answer by tomorrow but that's- our time. I-" he bites his lip, looking vaguely towards Jinyoung nervously- "can I- is it okay if I s-stay here tonight?" He asks, painfully hesitantly and cringing a little as though afraid of the answer but Jinyoung nods immediately.

"Of course it is," Jinyoung murmurs, slowly reaches over for his hand and he takes it immediately, squeezes almost too hard but Jinyoung really couldn't care less right now, "you can stay as long as you want to." There's a gravity to that which Jinyoung really hopes Jaebum picks up on and thankfully it seems he does, lifting his head to search Jinyoung's face with exhausted eyes, furrowed brow smoothing out slightly and a tiny smile lifting one corner of his mouth. Smiling back weakly, Jinyoung leans forward, cups his cheek and kisses him carefully, desperately hoping that the finality he's feeling is just in his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey so that happened huh
> 
> as u may be able to see, this is the last chapter of this part!! but it's not the end lol so if u want to be kept up-to-date with when the next part comes out, you can subscribe me if u like (user subscription or w/e) to get that sweet email when i post it or just keep an eye out <3 - it should be relatively soon?? I've started it but I am about to start like proper labs and stuff so we'll just have to see how it goes really ^^; 
> 
> Also not to ahahaha shamelessly self promo but please check out my markbum fic I started last week and also updated today!! You can find it [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13381905) it's a sci-fi and I'm super proud of it so pls check it out if that's something you'd be interested in!!
> 
> as always, i'd love to hear from you either in the comments section or on my [tumblr](http://jbibbles.tumblr.com/)!! and thank u all so much for reading and sticking with me for so long!!

**Author's Note:**

> hope u enjoyed it, hmu if u did either in the comments or on my [tumblr](http://jbibbles.tumblr.com/)  
> or [twitter](https://twitter.com/jbibbles)  
> i'm back at uni now so updates may become less frequent but i'll try to get a chapter out once a week  
> cheers lads!!


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